DIGICULT

Digital Art, Design & Culture

Founder & Editor-in-chief: Marco Mancuso

Advisory Board: Marco Mancuso, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Claudia D'Alonzo

Publisher: Associazione Culturale Digicult Largo Murani 4, 20133 Milan (Italy) http://www.digicult.it Editorial Press registered at Milan Court, number N°240 of 10/04/06. ISSN Code: 2037-2256

Licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - Creative Commons 2.5 Italy (CC BY- NC-ND 2.5)

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E-publishing development: Loretta Borrelli

Cover design: Eva Scaini

Digicult is part of the The Leonardo Organizational Member Program TABLE OF CONTENTS

Marco Mancuso Arduino: Technology Made In Italy ...... 3

Annette Wolfsberger Why I Cannot Writ About Isea 2008 ...... 12

Massimo Schiavoni Panorami Paralleli ...... 15

Annamaria Monteverdi Santarcengelo Of Theatres: Festival Is Still Alive ...... 20

Donata Marletta Eva And The Electronic Heaven ...... 25

Gigi Ghezzi From Sociology On The Net To That With The Net ...... 29

Clemente Pestelli Geoff Cox: Social Networking Is Not Working ...... 32

Davide Anni Netsukuku. Close The World, Txen Eht Nepo ...... 38

Lucrezia Cippitelli Maurizio Bolognini’s Postdigital Conversations ...... 41

Domenico Quaranta The Artist As Artwork In Virtual World – Part 2 ...... 45

Marco Mancuso Julien Maire, Leonardo And The Visual Anatomy ...... 51 Silvia Scaravaggi Silvia Bottiroli / Zapruder: Conversazioni ...... 60

Giuseppe Cordaro Paul Amlehn / Robert Fripp, Consciences Synthesis ...... 63

Marco Mancuso Soundmuseum.fm: The Sound Gallery ...... 68

Bertram Niessen Bruce Mcclure’s Sculptural Material ...... 71

Annamaria Monteverdi Crack! Live Electronics In Palmaria ...... 76

Barbara Sansone Machines And Souls ...... 80 Arduino: Technology Made In Italy

Marco Mancuso

and digital creativity in general. And somehow to represent one of the extremely rare examples in which Italian creativity – and the scientific understanding behind it – succeeded in getting out from under the domination of international hardware and software production.

Well, I have had this opening ready for a long time, some months to be Arduino from Dadone or Arduino from precise, since when I tried for the first Pombia, known as Arduino from Ivrea, time to contact Massimo Banzi for an was the King of Italy from 1002 to interview. I wanted to talk about his 1014. The Romantic culture made his professional activity and his creature figure popular, because they saw in Arduino, an open-source electronic him a precocious representative of platform based on a hardware board the struggle for Italy to get out from and a software that can interface a under foreign domination. computer with an object/sensor. But after a brave chase in the fog of digital Digital culture gave him a sort of seas, during which I didn’t listen to added international popularity, that is whom warned me against the famous since when Massimo Banzi, former elusiveness of the character and while lecturer at the former Design Institute I was looking through my database of in Ivrea, current lecturer at NABA in knowledge to try and stimulate his Milan, as well as co-founder of the intellect with innovative questions, consultancy Tinker.it!, decided to use well, right when I wasn’t expecting it Arduino (in those days, it was no more anymore, I received an answer to my than the name of the snack bar at the questions and reading about Banzi’s Institute) to name his new hardware engagements around the world, I product, destined (at least for now) to cannot do without thanking him for revolutionise the world of design, art his availability.

3 sound generators, various networks, telephone companies and interface themselves easily with almost all existing audiovisual managing programmes. Around Arduino quickly grew a community of users, which rely on similar communities, such as the same Processing, and makes the most of the dissemination potentiality of the net. Arduino’s creator was . brought around the world to visit the main media centres interested in But before you read the interview, proposing workshops and here is a final remark: very few presentations. A real earthquake in hardware and software applications in the world of design, whose effects the last few years had the ability to aren’t completely perceptible yet. impose themselves as real standards, Even because of the fact that the used in schools, by creatives and Arduino project is constantly evolving, artists. Especially if we take into and we still don’t know what else it consideration what is outside the could do in the future . world of the great IT companies. If I had to think about it, and remaining within the “do it yourself” sphere, I could only mention Processing by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, Mark Coniglio’s Isadora, Open Frameworks by Theodore Watson and Zach Lieberman as long as software is concerned and Massimo Banzi’s magic board for hardware.

Arduino is the hardware/software . object used by all those who, in the ambit of interaction design or design Marco Mancuso: Since some time in general, need to connect the now, Arduino became one of the machine (and the audiovisual fluxes internationally most used hardware inside it) to the physical object, and software tools for the interaction handling signals coming from between computers, software, different kinds of sensors, from lights, multimedia materials and physical

4 objects. I haven’t wanted to interview fact even my mum is now able to go you before, at the time Arduino was on the internet and use the computer, released and, as all innovations, was while 60 years ago you needed half a considered a real innovation in the palace and a team of engineers in world of creativity and digital art, but I white coats just to switch it on. The would like you to give a picture of the same happens with modern present situation. How is Arduino technologies, when you realise that, in experience proceeding; what is the order to modify the products you use, feedback at national and international you don’t need 5 years of university. level; how has Arduino entered, according to you, the world of digital The national feedback is quite art; how is it perceived by the negative, that is a kind way of saying specialists? that virtually no one knows us. But for how Italy works, it is possibly better Massimo Banzi: Arduino is spreading this way. quite quickly thanks also to magazines like Make and to the fact that it is used by now in design schools all over the world. We are still exploring the world of open-source hardware, which is quite a virgin field. The examples of open-source hardware are quite rare and definitely not widespread among the mass.

Arduino was conceived as a tool for designers and, in the end, it became a . more general tool for all those Marco Mancuso: Even if your interested in “do it yourself” professional experience included technology, I think, because of low being consultant at Labour Party BT, costs and (relative) easiness of use. MCI WorldCom, SmithKlineBeecham, The field was dominated by engineers Storagetek, BSkyB, Matrix Incubator who often created complex user and boo.com, Arduino was born, also interfaces and difficult to understand humanly, from your experience at the devices, in the name of the concept of Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea. technology as an elitist field, where What did that experience leave in you; you can enter just if you are a “wizard” how does it actually materialise within of this religion. If you look at your activity with Arduino and Tinker computer evolution, as a matter of

5 and, more in general, what is left at favour innovation. national and international level of that research and development centre?

Massimo Banzi: Ivrea generated many seeds that went around the world and created many little businesses, studies, ideas. Many students are now established designers in important companies such as IDEO, Panasonic, Canon, Microsoft and many more. If on one side, I have to thank some Telecom Italia for believing in this . idea, on the other I’m sad that another Marco Mancuso: What is for you the Telecom Italia didn’t understand that concept of “thinkering” and how much there was in Italy an institute that are you bound to the idea of “Do It could compete with MIT media lab Yourself”? I’m more and more and other international institutes. In convinced that it is necessary to the end, it was less expensive than provide the tools hardware, software other attempts to emulate the MIT, or codes– that enable to work for which never produces visible those who approach technology and outcomes. computing for the first time and want Being in Ivrea was very important for a creative outcome; at least at my work, because I could understand institutes, schools and universities. the needs of this new way of Without them, all theory is connected designing and the call for new tools to to nothing. As programmer, software help designers in their work. Tinker.it artist, entrepreneur, how much do is born with the aim to capitalise my you share this idea? personal experience, in Ivrea and with Massimo Banzi: There exist different Arduino, but it has the broader target methodologies to design or making to look at the world of design innovation, some very theoretical and interweaved with technology. We others much more practical. We have created a company that uses the believe in the ability to explore new methodologies developed through concepts by means of the quick Arduino and applies them to broader prototypisation of technological contexts, where there is the space to objects; we often start exploring create even easier tools or to help without a definite target. The companies apply methodology to

6 unconventional use of materials and January up to today, I got on 36 technology and the fact that we let us airplanes. This means that, in order to be overtook by the events, allow do what I like, I have to travel a lot. In spaces for innovation. Even though Europe , there are very experimenting Italy is not exactly an innovation places and I usually try and spend as engine like USA or even UK , we still much time as possible in those places. have produced numberless patents and ideas based on the use of new Apart from Mediamatic in materials and pre-existing Amsterdam, there are Waag society mechanisms. I believe that the and Steim doing an interesting work. methodologies that we use can help In particular, I like to talk about a innovation in the technological field project I’m bound to by great as well. affection: in Budapest , there is a centre called Kitchen Budapest, where young artists/designers are at work together with young engineers to create and prototype the most varied ideas. The centre was founded by the Hungarian Telekom with little money but with much love by Adam Somlai-Fisher, who is a very skilled architect (interviewed by you on the issue n°32 of Digimag in March 2008 – http://www.digicult.it/digimag/articl . e.asp?id=1098 ). In little more than a year, they have already “gemmated” a Marco Mancuso: You were often start-up and some of their projects invited to held workshops and have gained global visibility. I really meetings at Mediamatic and other believe in the light model of Kibu and institutes that work with both their ability to explore with little technology (electronic and digital) and money but much commitment. creativity, with an approach including hacking and design at the same time. It would be awesome if we could do What have received from this something like this in Italy. There is international experience and which much innovation based on ideas that possible developments for your don’t require very expensive activity originate from it? technologies, which Italians are very good at making; it will be enough to Massimo Banzi: Since the 1 st of have someone investing a little money

7 and we could create. If some reader better to work out of Italy , waiting for has got the money and wants to do it, Italian reporters to find you out while please get in touch. doing “cut and paste” from English websites, as they usually do

ut we are proud to say that Arduino is “made in Italy “. If you look at one of the most recent boards, you will see that we put in it a giant map of Italy and the fact that it is a made-in-Italy technological object is an important point. Our Chinese distributor told us that, although many clones exist, the fact that ours is the one “made in Italy . ” makes it sell more.

Marco Mancuso: In accordance with your international experience, and with your experience both in Ivrea and now at Naba, how can you judge the situation in Italy at production, project and education level? Which are the conditions allowing a better work and which are the potentials which our country is based on? Which are the criticisms that you have or the gaps that you think need to be bridged? .

Massimo Banzi: Italy is a gerontocracy Marco Mancuso: Without going into where, being 40, I am young. You the details of the technical understand how difficult it is to potentialities of Arduino, which is succeed in working openly on more an issue for interested innovative things. The former Minister developers, I would like to know Siniscalco once said: “In Italy , he which are the main potentials of the would have never become Bill Gates, tool at the moment. I mean, Arduino since he wouldn’t have had the capital was born to interact with sensors, and he would have been arrested, physical objects and software such as since he started in a garage and he Flash or Processing and it found many didn’t comply with the Law 626″ . It is applications in the field of the so-

8 called interaction design. More recently, he developed potentialities also with Bluetooth tools and consequently also with mobile technologies, not to mention the uses connected to location tools. Can you tell me about the latest developments and further ones, if there are?

Massimo Banzi: Arduino is after all a little computer with little power and . high potentialities. It gives the possibility to build objects that can Marco Mancuso: How is Arduino interact with the environment and connected with some similar create “intelligent” objects. It is development communities such as, already used by different companies and above all, Processing, from which to prototypise both design products Arduino’s software language comes? and much more conventional ones. And with regard to this, following From the point of view of technology, which needs Arduino’s open-source it is quite elementary; its value software was born, compared with consists in creating a mashup of pre- the original hardware board? existing technologies and open- Massimo Banzi: Arduino is extremely source, which are very difficult to connected with Processing because it learn if taken individually but when is somehow an extension of it. When are put together make an easy and we were in Ivrea, we discussed for fascinating product. We’re creating long with Casey Reas, who was different versions of Arduino, some on teaching there, on how to expand request of the users and others as the Processing into hardware result of consultancy projects we do. applications. These questions resulted Arduino products are often the open- in a Master thesis that we supervised source version of boards or software together (The Wiring project) and then that we made for clients of Tinker.it. in Arduino, which was born as a For example, we are now working on completely open version of the the project of a museum of science in concepts developed with Wiring. the United States and we are Processing was perfect for us: a constructing a new family of products software development environment which further simplify Arduino. . with just 6 buttons, while a monster

9 such as Eclipse had at least 60. Massimo Banzi: I’ve always liked Moreover, its programming language open-source as the extension of the is known by a very widespread mechanism of science, according to community, but made of quality which everybody extends the work of people, and that is why we are very others since it is shared with lucky to be in the right place at the everybody. I’ve been using linux since right time. We have links with 1993 and I’ve somehow always tried to PureData abd as well and I have many support it, for example with donations contacts with the creators of VVV, or buying distributions. There is a lot with whom we will organise a to do in the world of open-source workshop in London in October. hardware, in order to understand which are the business models that work.

Besides this, there is a big problem of fundamentalism in open-source: there is a percentage of users with the reasonableness of a Taliban who believe that everything I do should always be open and usable by everybody with no restrictions. But

. someone should also pay me for what I do . Marco Mancuso: How are you linked, practically and intellectually, to the world of open-source? Is it a philosophy that you share? From the top of your experience and frequenting in the commercial and hacking field, how do you see it possible to conjugate the activist philosophy of open-source, free software and creative hacking with the need to gain through your work, the selling of a product such as . Arduino or of software such as Marco Mancuso: Last question. Which Processing or others? are the artistic projects that you have noticed as the most effective, the

10 most interesting to be developed, the very few people come and tell you. I most aesthetically beautiful, created would say, many projects of the ITP in by means of Arduino? Anything you New York , where there are 120 would like to indicate? students constantly using Arduino: they are beautiful and interesting. Massimo Banzi: This is a difficult question. There are millions of Arduino’s boards circulating and it is very difficult to understand what is www.arduino.cc/ really made with Arduino, because www.tinker.it/

11 Why I Cannot Writ About Isea 2008

Annette Wolfsberger

questo report che Marco Mancuso mi ha chiesto, dato che partecipavo a Isea 2008 per presentare l’attività della Virtueel Platform di Amsterdam in cui lavoro come project manager, since I have not-attended (missed) more of it than attended given the multiplicity of its programme.

However, the format of the ISEA conference is what influenced If you are as reluctant or slow in everyone’s experience so I’ll rather making choices like me, from the very focus on that. The conference venue start, Singapore’s ISEA conference (Singapore’s University) turned into a programme was a daunting beehive for five days with everyone experience: six parallel conference busily swarming around and trying to sessions, next to performances, find the right honeycomb. I felt I partner events, exhibitions, meetings… mostly ended up in rather random ones. Luckily, strict time management And a conference programme made it possible to move between overview that (both online and in the different thematic blocks and print) forced you to choose your sessions, but unfortunately programme by either block theme, moderation seldom amounted to the speaker or the catchy (or not-s- more than time management, which -catchy) title of the lecture, you had made it easily possible to swap to either be an informed cross- between different lectures but rather disciplinary genius or carry around the difficult to explore the common 600 pages abstracts catalogue to find thread or overarching relations out more about the presentations. between lectures within one block in I found it an impossible task to more depth: Discussions therefore highlight ISEA’s programme, per mostly did not exceed beyond a critique of the paper at hand.

12 What a pity that it was not possible to find out beforehand who was going to attend ISEA for example. In heydays of social networking ubiquity, ISEA08 only managed to set up a social interface halfway through the conference. Despite that and somewhat paralleled by ISEA’s isolation within Singapore (I hardly met any Singaporean speakers or . attendees), it ended up being a very social event. Even though with some As Brogan Bunt in his critique Making Web2.0 tools applied it might have Sense of ISEA08 (link see beyond) just been just that bit more user already cited Andreas Broeckman, friendly – be it for networking every visitor of ISEA08 will have had a purposes, in depth information on the very subjective experience of the conference programme information event. I agree with Brogan that that or its documentation. Or just by live does not necessarily imply having a streaming for those who could not bad experience. The sphere of ISEA (afford to) attend. felt very hospitable and there was an air of participation and collaboration – practically everyone you met at ISEA was somehow part of it (although this left me wondering if any of the submitted papers or artists presentations had actually been rejected?). It just means that you had to let go of longing for a collective experience (apart from the keynote lectures, which I missed) and the feeling that you continuously miss . something happening elsewhere. The most collective experiences of ISEA If all of this sounds slightly negative, constituted the evening rest assured my general experience performances, sometimes amounting was not. Overall I enjoyed this ISEA to marathons of simultaneous or much more than the last one. Due to staged events. its parasitic and nomadic nature, the continuity of the conference must be

13 a huge challenge given that the event please visit: partly re-invents itself every time it takes place in a new city within a www.i4u.com/article19245.html different socio-cultural ecology. To www.we-make-money-not-art.com/ build on and include ISEA’s returning archives/2008/07/isea-in-singapo- community, I would heavily plead to e-the-juried.php invite some feedback from attendees to take suggestions on board for the www.themobilecity.nl/2008/08/11/is next ones. I would look forward even ea-2008-visualizing-the-real- more to Dublin09 and Ruhr10 then. time-city/

www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.p hp?review_id=310

www.isea2008singapore.org/ For more substantial critiques of ISEA,

14 Panorami Paralleli

Massimo Schiavoni

di un fare comune, letture e composizioni che trovano le basi nella cultura e nell’analisi sociale e morale del proprio appartenere, delle influenze e geografie interscambiabili e mai come ora sentite ed apprezzate.

Bruxelles, Madrid, Parigi e Lisbona ci mettono di fronte a dei perché mai veramente decifrabili, a delle verità mai veramente assolute; Quattro spettacoli che hanno solcato i meticolosamente ci impongono un teatri e i luoghi dei principali Festival punto di vista altro sul quale ragionare estivi, quattro performance nuove ed per intervenire davvero, sul quale originali che hanno deliziato l’Europa esplorare per canalizzarci dentro la nei vari ImpulsFestival di Vienna, creazione artistica ma senza DijleFeesten Deflux di Vismarkt, robotizzarci a semplici spettatori DasArts, Inteatro , Drodesera, e che vojeur. rivedremo imminenti anche in autunno supportati del successo riscosso nelle anteprime.

Arrivano da Bruxelles Manah Depauw e Bernard Van Eeghem con il loro apocalittico “How do you like my landscape?”, da Madrid Rosa Casado ci fa giocare collettivamente in “Well- being & welfare”, da Parigi il danzatore franco-tedesco Wolf Ka ci incanta con il suo spettacolo per uno spettatore . “Moving by numbers” e da Lisbona Claudia Dias ci sorprende con le In fondo siamo dinanzi a quattro scatole narrative di “Das coisas “modelli culturali”, quattro variabili nascem coisas”. Sono metodi diversi sociali e socio-psicologiche che

15 riflettono il modello conosciuto in Singer: “le performance sono elementi Occidente come era moderna o costitutivi della cultura e le unità anche postmoderna secondo un ultime di osservazione.. [ ] che offrono Arnold Toynbe o addirittura un Jean importanti chiarimenti sui modi in cui i Geyser, ma reinterpretati temi e i valori culturali vengono efficacemente e consapevolmente comunicati..” ; dove oggi – aggiungerei senza scarti fra ideali e realtà, fra – la componente dei mass media messinscena e retroscena. Manah e rivela anelli importanti per il fine Bernard, Rosa, Wolf e Claudia ultimo. vengono da competenze diverse, da “effervescenze” diverse ma poi comunicano perennemente e godono quotidianamente per le stesse realizzazioni, per le stesse regole e gli stessi drammi interni. In questi quattro panorami teatrali quello che si vuol evidenziare non è tanto la corteccia comunque strutturata con un alto livello scenografico e spettacolare, ma il processo cognitivo . e culturale che ha portato alla realizzazione e alla rappresentazione Manah Depauw e Bernard Van di concetti estetici, etici e culturali Eeghem ridefiniscono, in un sempre più intrisi nell’arte paesaggio in miniatura in cui contemporanea. l’apparente tranquillità camuffa le bestie e le catastrofi imminenti, il Più che definirli spettacoli ruolo del corpo umano nella performativi bisognerebbe insistere contemporaneità raccontando su una sorta di esperienza collettiva, l’evoluzione, lo sviluppo e la di rito e celebrazione etnografica trasformazione nella Genesi, nella mascherata da spettacolo. Qui c’è Nascita dell’uomo, nella Bestia fino tutto. Gioia e dolori, miti e simboli, all’Apocalisse. Con How do you like paure e felicità nonché diritti e doveri. my landscape? Si fa luce quindi su una “canalizzazione del comportamento Gli autori attraverso i performer emozionalmente motivato” per Manah Depauw e Carlos Pez González promuovere la comunicazione e per decontestualizzano il corpo umano e occupare la fonte generatrice dell’atto lo mettono al di fuori di ogni nostra drammaturgico. Come scrive Milton

16 probabile intuizione. Manah è vestita modi di “pensare” e di “fare”, e per da infermiera e i suoi occhi fissano lo sviluppare spazi interdisciplinari che spettatore con calma inquietante e promuovono la diffusione dell’arte paradossale, come dentro una sala contemporanea. Well-being & welfare operatoria tutto è in equilibrio e ogni è un’ azione site specific sul movimento risulta calmo ed progresso, le sue regole, i suoi effetti, armonioso. Davanti a lei la miniatura, l’accumulo che il suo incedere un pezzo di mondo che tocca, scopre produce è un gioco collettivo che per diventare esecutrice materiale coinvolge il pubblico in prima della creazione, ma anche della persona, rendendolo attore dei distruzione tutta. Il teatrino continua, cambiamenti, dimostrandone la forza dietro una tenda bianca di plastica, di intervento sull’ambiente. Rosa ha con una voce narrante maschile che creato un meccanismo di messa in dirige in inglese la giovane performer scena che lavora sulla dimensione in questa operazione a cuore aperto. percettiva ed intuitiva della ricezione Tutto ci passa di fronte come una teatrale, rappresentando l’influenza storia dell’uomo in venti minuti, dalle che l’uomo ha sulla realtà attraverso battaglie, alle guerre fino alla messa in l’uso di oggetti quotidiani: i piccoli croce di Cristo. Fra simboli, ironia e giocattoli di cui si serve (macchine, rimandi agghiaccianti il piccolo spazio treni, alberi, case..) vengono scenico ci inghiottisce dentro la posizionati e continuamente spostati nostra stessa realtà, dentro il nostro secondo regole dettate dall’artista; il stesso destino. pubblico ha la possibilità di interagire con la scena ed aggiungere, cambiare e trasformare la performance, le sue dinamiche ed i suoi elementi.

Una provocazione all’azione, un’interattività desiderata e realizzata che rende i passanti spettatori e gli spettatori attori e giocatori. In questo modo il processo e lo sviluppo dell’azione saranno nelle mani di chi guarda e decide di agire. Tutti siamo . coinvolti nel “gioco dello stare bene”, tutti alla fine abbiamo preso in mano Rosa Casado riscrive la realtà le redini dell’opera avendola fatta attraverso azioni quotidiane de- nostra, con le nostre decisioni, le contestualizzate, per esplorare nuovi nostre regole e gli spostamenti dettati

17 dalla nostra consapevolezza e dalla passiva ma di attiva partecipazione nostra voglia di cambiare il gioco. allo spettacolo. Spettatore e Wolf Ka con “Moving by numbers” danzatore sono partner artistici lungo realizza un’esperienza unica tra lo lo stesso percorso performativo. La spettatore ed il danzatore in questo tecnologia dunque modella l’atto lavoro per uno spettatore alla volta. spettacolare rendendolo Una dimensione intima ed intensa, un’esperienza da vivere con l’altro, creata grazie ad un particolare diventando un’estensione fisica e dispositivo tecnologico la cui spaziale del corpo su cui è utilizzata, interfaccia visuale ed audiotattile abolendo la frontiera che separa lo stimola il corpo dello spettatore spazio virtuale da quello reale. attraverso le azioni sceniche del danzatore. Claudia Dias, danzatrice tra le più intriganti della nuova scena portoghese, è una delle artiste prodotte da Re.Al, la compagnia fondata nel 1990 da Jo,o Fiadeiro, a tutti gli effetti considerato il padre della nuova generazione coreutica del Portogallo. Dopo Visita guidata dove conduceva lo spettatore nei luoghi della memoria e della geografia quotidiana di Lisbona, attraverso

. ricordi personali e collettivi, che ha raccolto misurandosi, per la prima I due lati della relazione scenica volta con la scrittura, in questo nuovo divengono così partner artistici, lavoro Das coisas nascem coisas , abolendo la frontiera che separa lo Claudia sperimenta i limiti della spazio virtuale da quello reale. traduzione del movimento, creando L’intima dimensione performativa che una sorta di test sulle possibili si viene così a creare genera una variazioni e differenze esistenti tra la relazione esclusiva, senza la presenza definizione, il commento e l’opinione; di altri testimoni; un’interattività che esplorando le possibili connessioni modifica lo statuto stesso del ruolo che si stabiliscono fra il tempo spettatoriale, non più di osservazione dell’azione e quello dell’immagine.

18 Ed ecco un muro di scatole pronto per essere reinterpretato e modellato secondo prospettive e dinamiche socio-culturali che la performer ci presenta in lingua portoghese. E così si monta e si smonta, si costruiscono torri gemelle, tombe sacre, crocifissi, piramidi e piante architettoniche, tutto con semplici gesti bilanciati e precisi per dar voce ad un sottotesto . molto più d’impatto di 154 scatole marroni.

19 Santarcengelo Of Theatres: Festival Is Still Alive

Annamaria Monteverdi

cancellation, just a few weeks before its beginning. Part of the schedule had already been set up at the time of the withdrawals, but the general coordination, the organizing and technical supervision were missing. Someone had to intervene soon to decide what to do with the festival, which new advertising campaign to conduct, which criteria to use for the

Santarcangelo is the venue of the selection of a new supervision team. most important and historic festival of Sandro Pascucci, the mayor of research theatre, which was once just Longiano who was elected president the festival of street theatre. And we of the board of directors of were there! Also (and mainly) during Santarcangelo, took bravely upon this precarious edition, with no artistic himself the burden of direction: in this director for the first time in its long situation of instability, he tried to history. We must report the valiant involve the municipal territory and, resistance of the actors of the now above all, not to deprive the theatrical famous and historic 90s’ generation groups (that had been working for (Teatrino clandestino, Fanny & months on projects of production and Alexander, Motus), but also of the 80s’ co-production for Santarcangelo) of generation (first and foremost, the love and support of the festival. Socìetas and Le albe). Pascucci was an excellent host, The sensational withdrawal of artistic beloved by artists and intellectuals, director Oliver Bouin, who was critics and journalists who rushed elected two years ago with a from all over Italy to support a questionable competition and didn’t monument to Italian avant-garde come up to the expectations and, theatre such as Santarcangelo. All this even before, the voluntary withdrawal happened in an edition that recalled of vice-director Paolo Ruffini, left the the year 1978, an historic season, festival in a fix, at the risk of characterised by “third theatre” and

20 the direction of Roberto Bacci. Teatrino clandestino’s performance “Candide“, declared that within the Italy of festivals, where science, maths, art and mind are celebrated, Santarcangelo should host a festival of freedom In a polemical tone, he asserted that, since the budget allocated for real, important festivals such as Santarcangelo’s grows thinner and thinner (sometimes the budget is cut by 70%), we should have the courage to close the unnecessary . festivals, “one out of five will already The tenacious resistance that the be a result”. Roberto Latini, in his groups put up on the field made the “slow release” in piazza Ganganelli, journalists take their side and declared instead that there is no more intervene in an unusual way, with a need for a “direction” in the original cry against the logics of institutions meaning of the word, that is to say and bureaucratic fetters, the same that the power shouldn’t be that would have decreed an inglorious concentrated in the hands of one man end in Santarcangelo. who decides motu proprio the destiny of a festival. The collectivisation of In a section named “Power without executive functions as an alternative Power” and renamed, in an amused to centralising power is a beautiful tone, “slow release”, before each utopia coming from far away, I don’t performance in the two weeks of know how much it can be applied to a scheduling, a microphone was festival of theatre. A heated debate switched on and renowned critics or opens and spreads to the web with a artists could give their personal radio live broadcast. Santarcangelo is opinion on what to do with the on line from piazza Ganganelli thanks festival, on its meaning and on how to to the very active group Altre Velocità, work for a new artistic direction. The which follows from close-by the most voice of critics and their presence important research festivals. But, of influenced this season more than course, which war can you fight with expected. Somehow it was “their” these technological means against festival as well. some media giants! And still, this is resistance as well!. Oliviero Ponte di Pino, before the

21 principle is past and it is though obvious that there is a need for new reference models.

From tomorrow on, we should try to understand, to tuck up our sleeves, to salvage whatever possible and to face the issue of memory at the festival, but also its present meaning. There are rumours that a plausible

. hypothesis is to entrust the main groups with the direction, year after In this situation, what is the use of year, in rotation: but will a year be avant-garde? When is the alternative enough to start a serious festival culture that we follow, support and project? We strongly doubt it, as represent going to be more and more much as we doubt that a group could the culture of a silent minority, of an be super partes in the choice of the intellectual self-referential niche? works and the companies to host. These are the question Ponte di Pino Personally, I still believe in the figure asked in a polemic tone to the public of the director with the right skills, in Santarcangelo. “Holiday festivals” with experience coming more from host performances that would never criticism and organisation than from see the light on the important stages being an actor, in order to resist the of weekday periods; productions are obvious temptations of the clash of born and die in the course of a few interests. Of course, (s)he should be a months; town theatres are hardly able person who accept to be introduced to find their audience; the directors to new external realities, to start have goals based almost exclusively collaborations with international on the number of tickets they sell; festivals, to guarantee continuity and market economy is the law, life to the selected shows, beyond the considering that the system keeps on period of the festival. Her/his using questionable methods for the commitment will concern also the allocation of funds and artistic visibility of the productions in the directions and that some privileges neighbouring areas, from Ravenna to and some privileged people remain Mondaino, which is at one hour from unchanged; considering that we Santarcangelo. Of course, they are witness powerless the fact that the corners of paradise with little or no equality of opportunities is never equals in Italy : long residences, considered, we can tell that the funding availability for companies,

22 guest quarters and every type of residences showed a beautiful model logistic and technical support. of productive hospitality and artistic sharing among Longiano, Mondaino, Santarcangelo: React!, which support the group Aksè coordinated by the Nanou group and ” Emerald City ” by Fanny & Alexander.

Beyond the opinion on the single productions presented at the festival, we saw a numerous and participating audience, a recovered crowd which sang with Gianni Casali the songs of . the 1968 protest movement. Casali’s performance was lacking in rhetoric L’Arboreto [The Arboretum] in and derived from a smart theatre- Mondaino, with its charming theatre song rendering of Mario Capanna’s in the wood which has been specially book “Formidabili quegli anni” built for this project, has been ["Wonderful, those years!"], enriched decisive for the construction of new with songs by Boris Vian, Giorgio national theatre realities. The theatre Gaber, Fossati. During the two days I in Mondaino, which has grown was at the festival in Santarcangelo, exponentially in the last years as far as Motus, Teatrino Clandestino, Mk and workshops, residences and scheduling Simona Bertozzi, Pathosformel, suggestions are concerned, was born Ooffouro were the groups that won on the express will and passion of the most praise. Fabio Biondi, a director really involved in facing with passion the issue of co- productions, of permanent training, of territorial and extra-territorial collaborations. In my opinion, he is the most suitable for directing Santarcangelo. The presence of days of meeting, debates (among which the one on moderate residences held by the extraordinary Piersandra Di Matteo di Artò) and discussion groups have increased the offer of this . transition festival. The meeting on

23 But the whole scheduling, in spite of We report Motus’s continuity in the the precariousness of the situation, work of theatre/film creation ICS, a was really interesting, with Fanny & lacerating story of generation rage Alexander performing their new work that is also the cry, not only for the first time, Kinkaleri, Paola symbolical, of this festival, orphan of a Bianchi, Carloni and Franceschetti’s director but with still ideas, vitality video-installations and Mutoid Waste and positive energy. God bless the Company‘s sculptures. festival!.

24 Eva And The Electronic Heaven

Donata Marletta

purposes; also has held many events, and above all the seminal exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, organized by Jasia Reichardt.

As an Italian researcher working in the United Kingdom I felt pleased and also a bit uncomfortable to enter the BCS building; that place sounded to me as the kingdom of computer art, a This year’s edition of EVA London historical sight which delivered the conference took place from the 22nd first attempts to merge technology to the 24th of July in the prestigious and artistic creations. home of the British Computer Society (BCS).

The BCS is a cultural institution established in 1957, which aims to encourage the study and practice of computing, and is the leading body for those working in the Information Technology. The conference was co- sponsored by the Computer Arts Society (CAS), which is a specialist group within the BCS. Let me remind . a few little notes about the CAS. Established in 1968, it represents both Although I’m mostly interested in the a forum and support for artists and sociological and anthropological professionals engaged with electronic aspects of the emergence of new and experimental art practices. During technologies and digital culture, and the 60s the institute was involved in I’m neither a software developer nor a establishing collaborations between technologist, many presentations artists and technologists for creative during EVA captured my attention

25 and curiosity. Among the about thirty data, the Wiimote represents a handy papers, I though several of them were and affordable tool for innovative particularly innovative and functional, projects and research. especially for performance arts, and educational and experimental purposes.

I was extremely fascinated by Kia Ng’s presentation on Technology- Enhanced Learning for Music with I- Maestro Framework and Tools. Kia is the director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Research in Music (ICSRiM, University of Leeds ), and his project aims to explore . innovative solutions for music training More sociological oriented were the in both theory and performance. presentations New Literacy New Building on recent innovations Audiences: Social Media and Cultural resulting from the development of Institutions by Angelina Russo computer and information together with Jerry Watkins, and On- technologies, by exploiting new Line Encounters: A new Method of pedagogical paradigms with Creating Participatory Art by Rebecca cooperative and interactive self- Gamble. During the first presentation learning environments, gestural Russo and Watkins reported the interfaces, and augmented findings of a three years Australian instruments, with computer-assisted research project in which they tuition in classrooms, to offer analysed whether the evolution in technology-enhanced environments digital content creation – New Literacy for practical-training, creativity, , and social media can create a new analysis, and theory-training, audience of active cultural ensemble playing, composition, etc. participants. The cultural participant I’ve also found interesting a few has the “digital literacy”, the skills projects about the diverse uses of the required to use digital technologies to Wiimote, a fancy white interactive engage in both cultural consumption remote controller developed by and production through interaction Nintendo. From the analysis of a with digital cultural content. conductor’s gestures, to a method of The aim of Gamble’s paper is to interactive sonification of 2D image

26 present how the emergence of Web involved as final users. Callas aims to 2.0 technology has transferred social design and develop an integrated activities on-line, and re-arranged the multimodal architecture able to take way people meet and interact. This account of emotional aspects to new phenomenon has led to the support applications in the new media emergence of new platforms for business scenario with an “ambient artists, the creation of new ways to intelligence” paradigm. present, circulate, and promote art, and to encourage more participation The structure presents three main and collaborations. In both papers the areas: the Shelf, collecting multimodal crucial role played by on-line affective components; the communication is clear, what is new Framework, which is the software here is the increasing importance of infrastructure that enables the the idea of participatory media, and cooperation of multiple components the closer engagement with with the interface addressed to the audiences and communities. final users; and the Showcases, which addresses three main fields of new media (Augmented Reality Art, Entertainment and Digital Theatre, Interactive installation in public spaces, and next generation Interactive TV).

The second project was A new Information System for the Superintendence of Pompeii : Integration, Management and

. Preservation of Archaeological Digital Resources in the Perspective of In this brief journey inside EVA Interoperability with European Digital London, finally I want to mention two Libraries by Rony Cesana and Maria remarkable projects made in Italy . Emilia Masci. The Scuola Normale The first presented by Irene Buonazia Superiore di Pisa started the project in and Massimo Bertoncini, Emotional 2005, aiming to develop the Pompeii Interfaces in Performing Arts: The Information System. In its final stage Callas Project is the result of the the System will become both the collaboration between universities official web site and the main and private research laboratories, and information system of the artists, broadcasts and theatres Archaeological Information System

27 for the Geographic Area of Mount Today the possibilities offered by new Vesuvius (SIAV), and will be used for technologies are almost countless cataloguing, documentation, that we can easily get lost in it; every preservation, and management of aspect of our life opens up new archaeological heritage, and for opportunities to experiment, to external communication. challenge our limits as human beings. So please please please, keep researching, keep pushing the boundaries of knowledge, and above all trust in mutual collaboration and cultural exchange. Please keep experimental culture alive!.

www.eva-conferences.com/eva_lond on/ . www.bcs.org/ This small, and absolutely arbitrary, selection of papers is to give an idea www.computer-arts-society.org/ of what EVA London 2008 is about. www.ica.org.uk/ The conference also offers a place for networking, a great platform for www.i-maestro.org presenters to showcase their projects through visualisations and http://nlablog.wordpress.com/ demonstrations, and finally the chance for postgraduate students to www.rebeccagamble.co.uk attend the research workshops. www.callas-newmedia.eu/

28 From Sociology On The Net To That With The Net

Gigi Ghezzi

the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of groups is one of the main activities in one of the most important sciences of society, that is sociology: as a matter of fact, this subject was born thanks to impressionist theories on the quantity of masses, grew with more scientific tools such as statistical techniques and got lost when it split into numberless branches, such as mass In its almost fifteen years of life, the communication –for which the Internet has become an well- subjects to analyse are above all the constructed data environment which audience of broadcasting closer and closer mirrors the technologies–, or sociology of information exchange that peoples consumption, which mainly quantifies society. and analyses the consumption habits of citizens. Among the numerous speculations that have marked its most well- known part, that is the Web, we can ascertain that, with the beginning of the 2.0 issue, the possibility to monitor the users has surely increased: the Net offers today unending measuring possibilities, being accesses or optional choices, bank transactions or collaborations, ranking programmes or profile . analysis to be counted. Nevertheless, very few sociologists Peaking of this, we can ascertain that

29 asked themselves if the Internet can offer the tools to understand the . overall change of society or if it can The paper proposal says: “in the just solve more macro-sociological beginning, forms of measuring and issues, which deal with large scale numbering citizens, consumers and characteristics of the social structure spectators subsisted in mass media of groups and roles, and not just with informative environments, in which psychological influences or the the frequency of messages, their interactions of little groups; the last average and the tolerance toward one –the interaction of little groups– redundancy phenomena were worth seems to be also the focus of another the most. It was a question of branch of sociology, namely computer understanding what the majority of mediated communication or citizens were thinking, what the sociology of telecommunication majority of consumers were buying systems. and what did televiewers want to see. he issue has been recently brought up hese interests reflect themselves also by the sociologists Josef Wehner and in the Internet-environment: the top Jan-Hendrik Passoth of the lists, the averages and the access Universität Bielefeld, while proposing frequencies can be constantly a convention called “From the class to monitored, but still they don’t exhaust the cluster: on the relationship among the potentials of measurement of media, measuring and socialization” mass media behaviours because, [Von der Klasse zum Cluster – Zum thanks to the tracings of consumption Verhältnis von Medien, Messungen habits or of the change of social und Sozialität], which will be held in networks profiles, it is possible to Bielefeld on the 30 th and 31 st of compile in real time forms of affinity January 2009 and in which the measurement in much more complex participation as lecturers is still open ( groups than the usual social classes”. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin. de/termine/id=9709 ).

30 . During this convention, it will be interesting to notice whether, in the This long quotation allows us to focus perspective of a scientific on the new qualitative and normalization of social behaviours classification tools that the Net offers expressed through the Net, the or may offer as guidance for disciplinary paradigm that separates sociology: which may be the new interpersonal communication (the taxonomies formulated according to traditional sociology of preferences, memberships, communication) from computer- migrations and disappearances from mediated communication will be determinate websites in comparison tarnished. Computer-mediated to others? Which are the forms of communication is usually considered social inclusion and exclusion? Which different, because it is not face-t- are, finally, the theories and the -face, a definition that has ironically concepts that concern these issues? made the fortune of one of the largest existing social networks.

31 Geoff Cox: Social Networking Is Not Working

Clemente Pestelli

“Friendster Suicide” by Cory Arcangel, from “web2dizzaster” by sumoto.iki to “Fake is a Fake” by Les Liens Invisibles.

With Geoff Cox, we talked about how, beyond the quick enthusiasm and the rhetoric of social networks, it is urgent and necessary to develop a critical theory of social networks, and about how contemporary artistic practice could be essential for the exploration Geoff Cox is an artist, teacher and of new forms of participation, organiser of events connected with activism and democracy on the digital experimentation in the United Internet. Kingdom. Within his curatorial route for Arnolfini, an organisation dealing with contemporary art, he developed an interesting project whose topic is the intersections between critical theory of social networks and critical practice of the world of art.

Already from its name, “AntiSocial NotWorking”, we can understand that the project aims at questioning two of the founding terms of the Web 2.0: . “social” and “networking”. Within the very rich portal, there are some of the Clemente Pestelli: The title of the most interesting Internet projects of project is controversial and, at the the last few years: from <$BlogTitle$> same time, fascinating. Can you by Jodi to “Amazon Noir” and “Google explain, in a few words, what Will Eat Itself” by Ubermorgen-Ciri- “AntiSocial NotWorking” wants to -Ludovico, from “logo_wiki” by Wayne suggest? Clements to “Blue Tube” and

32 Geoff Cox: I’m glad you find it a fascinating title. It’s deliberately . playful, a “hack” if you like, and one The influence of communication in where it seems to contradict itself contemporary characterizations of with a double negative. The first point labour find their way into the second is simple: that by saying “antisocial”, term “notworking”. This is a common the pervasive use of the term “social” enough joke – “notworking” as is thrown into question. I write about opposed to “networking” – and a good this in the accompanying notes to way into various discussions about develop a critique of the apparent free labour and how labour time is friendliness of social interactions less and less distinct from time through web 2.0 platforms, but at the outside work – as ‘nonwork’. Work on same time to strike a distinction from the Net is a clear example of this antisocial networking sites such tendency and one of the significant as”Hatebook” that are not dialectical aspects of social network sites is the enough in my view. way in which users volunteer their The crucial point is that by stressing labour time – and their subjectivity. friendliness and avoiding antagonism, I like the way when you put all this politics is avoided. What is also together -”antisocial” and evoked is the critical tradition of “notworking” – the meanings become negation associated with dialectics. multiple and contradictory. There is a For instance, “negative dialectics” further aspect of contradiction and would suggest a number of things but negation at work here too perhaps, in perhaps most importantly for this evoking the concept of “negation of context more of a focus on negation” to understand the title not subjectivity and structures of as a double negative or a simple communication. reversal of one thing with another but an ongoing deeper engagement.

33 . cultures are concerned this is a technical and social truism. Of course Clemente Pestelli: In your “Notes in there is nothing new in this, and support of antisocial notworking”, you earlier iterations of the net are full of writes about how, during the ascent examples of antagonistic tactics. of social networks, social relationships were emptied of every form of As for your main question about what antagonism and so, in short, of every has happened more recently, I’m not form of politics. I think the analysis is sure I’m qualified to answer this. right. But if we think about the first However I suppose the issue for me is period of the World Wide Web, we how contradictions are evident in new cannot but be impressed by the fact ways, and that organisational forms that exactly the Internet was the are more networked in character. privileged ground of political There are a number of examples of experimentation, exploited by network-organized forms of political movements and activists from all over organization, enhancing the open the world: an example is the ” Battle in sharing of ideas – such as Indymedia, Seattle ” of 1999 and the role of as you mention, and what is referred Indymedia. Today, corporate to as the “multitude” more generally. communication platforms such as Contemporary forms of protest tend Google, Microsoft and Yahoo allow to to reject centralized forms for more share and spread even more distributed and collective forms, but information than before, but although the tendency has both positive and this fact, I can’t see any conflictual negative consequences, both approach that is as much efficient. releasing and limiting future What do you think has happened? Is it possibilities. something depending on a precise strategy of the global corporations or The example of Facebook exemplifies is it something that has to do with the the point in that it both demonstrates health of movements? the potential for self-organisation and at the same time the drive to Geoff Cox: Both I suppose. I would commodify collective exchanges. stress how the production of non- Capital recuperates emergent antagonistic social relations has tendencies really well, as we know. become absolutely central to social The autonomists refer to the “cycle of control. In the notes I cite Rossiter struggle” to emphasize that resistance who argues that without identifying needs to transform itself in parallel to the antagonisms that politics simply recuperative processes. In a really nice cannot exist. As far as network description, Tronti says the

34 restructuring of capital and the dimension of the Web 2.0? recomposition of resistance “chase each others tails”. More tactical and Geoff Cox: As you say, the confusion strategic alternatives need to be over what constitutes work and non- developed all the time and I don’t work turns attention to what think there’s a way out of this constitutes effective action. Refusal to recursive loop. Antagonism is a work is one established oppositional necessary part of this but I’m not sure tactic in recognition of exploitation in where to look for specific examples the workplace. But it’s harder to see on the web, better to look elsewhere I how exploitation takes place in think, to peer production more relation to nonwork, or how broadly. notworking in itself might be productive. To simply refuse to take part in social networking platforms or refuse to submit personal information is not particularly effective in itself. The point, as I tried to say in the notes, is how to think about “well- assembled collectives” that can be involved in production that is not an exploitative situation. As well as Tronti, I refer to Paolo Virno’s “Grammar of the Multitude” for this . reason.

Clemente Pestelli: NotWorking, What is required are strategies and antithetic to networking, is the other techniques of better organization key word of the project. In particular, founded on different principles. Peer in the introductory notes to the production offers one example of the project, you refer to Tronti’s essay opportunity to explore the limits of “The Strategy of the Refusal” (1965). democracy and rethink politics. I think What relationship is there, today, this is a really interesting area of between job and social networks, activity that seems to be gathering when the time you spend at work can momentum – as both an expression be less and less distinguished from of”non-representational democracy” the time you don’t spend at work? and as an alternative economic How do you think it’s possible to system altogether. Social networks combine the idea of “refusal of work” hold the potential to transform social with the completely absorbing relations for the common good but

35 only if held within the public realm organizations have enthusiastically and outside of private ownership. adopted the rhetoric of social networking but the critique is less well developed, at least in the UK.

The project has tried to draw in practices from software culture more broadly and bring them to the attention of the contemporary art world – remember I have produced this project as part of my curatorial remit at Arnolfini which is a contemporary art organization that is . only just beginning to engage with the internet. But, as for more than Clemente Pestelli: “AntiSocial this, your question is spot on I think – NotWorking” is a rich repository of whether oppositional strategies are projects showing a critical point of merely oppositional rather than view towards the different platforms transformative. This is one of the of social networks and the symbols of crucial questions for anyone working the Web 2.0. What can we expect in the area of critical practice. from the works that are contained in the database? A simple point of view or maybe some useful techniques for a new creative resistance?

Geoff Cox: The project is modest in itself, hoping to draw together some existing and new critical works, in a body of practices that take issue with web 2.0 as an attack on peer production in the sense described earlier. There are some well known . projects and some not so well known but together they demonstrate the Otherwise politics might simply be usefulness of creative (art) practice to cast as a trendy theme as we see all question popular forms – or I might the time in contemporary arts even want to make a distinction here practice. The challenge remains as between popular and populism. Arts how to make this transformative or

36 whether art can have a role at all in well-placed. Further projects that I am this. I think the potential to transform involved in will continue to explore social relations is demonstrated in the this issue in the spirit of antisocial dynamics of social networking notworking. technologies but as I said only if certain principles are maintained. In addition, I think that the current http://project.arnolfini.org.uk/project struggles over sharing digital content, s/2008/antisocial/ such as those over peer to peer file- sharing, are crucially important and http://project.arnolfini.org.uk/project this is where creative resistance is s/2008/antisocial/notes.php

37 Netsukuku. Close The World, Txen Eht Nepo

Davide Anni

Come condividere la proprietà di internet? Come destrutturare una struttura gerarchica in espansione continua? Come comunicare digitalmente senza chiedere il preventivo permesso alle autorità, e mendicare interfacce che gratificano la partecipazione “many to many”? Semplice! Non ci resta altro che sostituirla.

Interfacce, protocolli, pachetti ip, Queste sono alcune premesse del router, ISP, browser, linguaggi di progetto Netsukuku, una rete programmazione, sono i fondamentali distribuita, decentralizzata e protagonisti del mutamento dalla pienamente efficiente; una rete che comunicazione assimetrica a quella possa quindi non essere sottoposta a partecipativa, prepotentemente nessun tipo di governo, che sia entrata nella nostra vita, cambiando globale e distribuita, anonima e non canoni e ruoli di ognuno di noi. controllata, non necessariamente separata da Internet, senza il supporto Questo modo di operare, di alcun server, ISP e di alcuna autorità “trasparente”, che descrive tratti centrale. Da ora in poi non sarà più caratteristici personali, è a mio parere, Internet ma Netsukuku!. molto discutibile e a differenza di quanto si pensi, poco libero. Progetti di sovversione, attivismo, artivismo sono “spesso” il frutto fiacco, retorico e funzionale che alimenta più che cambiare, fa sorridere più che pensare, e mi rende consapevole dell’ impossibilità dell’arte, di essere un originale alternativa nel calderone dei nuovi media.

38 . valore estetico: esso estende le possibilità dell’arte di fare network, e Tecnicamente Netsukuku è un altro si caraterizza per essere una grande protocollo di routing, dove è possibile opera interattiva. implementare su di esso effettivi sistemi distribuiti, come ad esempio l’Abnormal Netsukuku Domain Name Anarchy (ANDNA), che sostituira’ l’attuale sistema gerarchico e centralizzato dei DNS (cioè il dominio identificativo e univoco). L’indirizzo IP che identifica un computer è scelto cioè casualmente ed in modo univoco (eventuali collisioni vengono risolte), quindi non è associabile ad una località fisica precisa, e le rotte stesse, . essendo formate da un numero La ricerca svolta, grazie alla Mailing innumerevole di nodi, tendono ad list, ed al canale IRC (internet relay avere una complessità e densità chat) di Netsukuku, si è rivelata uno talmente elevata da rendere il strumento fondamentale per tracciamento di un nodo un’impresa avvicinarmi al progetto pratico e estremamente complicata. teorico; L’animata partecipazione e la Composta inizialmente da 14000 righe fitta corrispondenza da parte dei di codice, grazie alla caratteristica di diretti sviluppatori, ha risposto alle essere open source con licenza GPL, è domande con molta precisione, in continua espansione ed è arrivata entusiasmo e qualità da vendere; ad oggi a circa 40000 righe di codice. creando in continuazione materiale da E’ impensabile migrare consultare, studiare, condividere, di immediatamente da internet a conseguenza consiglio agli interessati Netsukuku, ma il progetto è di sfruttare questi canali per comunque una boccata di ossigeno, approfondire l’argomento. Tempo, un nuovo dialogo per la circolazione di luoghi, e personale della FreakNet idee diverse, per lo sviluppo di un MediaLab di Catania (il gruppo di processo democratico e per il pieno sviluppatori originario del sistema di diritto di cittadinanza all’interno della routing sperimentale di tipo peer-t- società di informazioni. -peer) permettendo, ci sarà il prossimo ottobre un workshop nel Si intrave quindi in Netsukuku un forte Nord Italia, che illustrerà più

39 esaustivamente quanto detto. risposto pazientemente alle mie domande. Un ringraziamento speciale ad Alpt, il leggendario “ragazzo” che ha iniziato a scrivere il software, e a tutti gli sviluppatori globali che hanno http://netsukuku.freaknet.org/

40 Maurizio Bolognini’s Postdigital Conversations

Lucrezia Cippitelli

were not shown, but lived within the system that created them; “SMSMS”, a kind of intervention aiming at cracking one of his sealed computers by means of a mobile phone, intervening in the flow of generated images that, in this case, was displayed by a projector.

Since then, during the five years I have spent at the MLAC, I have heard Some issues ago much about this mysterious and ( intellectual artist, who lived secluded http://www.digicult.it/digimag/articl (in my opinion) in Northern Italy, far e.asp?id=189), in the historic June from a chaotic but also lively city like 2005 issue 6, to be precise, DigiMag Rome, and who acted poised had already introduced Maurizio between the belonging to a world of Bolognini’s work on the occasion of an art that seemed to me, at that period, exhibition whose title was a bit mainstream (where he exhibited) “Programmed Machines” at the “Villa and the world where there still was an Croce” museum in Genoa. aura of experimentalism, such as that of media. Art system with a capital “A” Some years ago, I had known his work and festivals that were devoted to during an exhibition at the Museo media and technologies; works of art Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea and hacklabs; electronic democracy (Laboratory Museum of Contemporary and installations in the museums: Art) in Rome , where I had started to what strange character managed to work in that period. His exhibition, cope with unconstraint, between two entitled “Infoinstallations“, presented worlds that are parallel and, although some of his most famous works: the they sometimes intersect, they “Sealed Computers”, impregnable communicate by using completely cases of PCs that were programmed different linguistic codes and self- to generate random images, which referentialities?.

41 thoroughly and explained, pinpointed and discussed, categorized and made accessible. Therefore, beside a bit more academic conversations on contemporary art, this artist- researcher talked also about topics like networks and “new technologies”, bioart and nanotechnologies, art system and festivals, sharing and collecting, digital synthesis and . activism.

To Maurizio Bolognini, Domenico The limpid language, the urgency to Scudero, the MLAC curator, had incite critical thought starting from devoted a book that accompanied the information, names, projects, “Infoinstallations” exhibition; definitions; the absolute distance moreover, Bolognini regularly from the linguistic cryptic and self- contributed to an editorial project referential clichés of art critics who referring to the MLAC, the “Luxflux” love “writing in an intricate way”: they magazine, in which I took part for were all elements that betrayed the some time. “constructive” will, typical of those who are “producers” and want to Bolognini was the writer who was recreate the coordinates of a context always on time and meticulous, who where they can insert and give a sent articles in time, full of references, sense to the experiences in which notes, images, captions: I always had they are immersed. the idea that it was a passion controlled by the necessity to communicate, to be exhaustive and make oneself understood. I remember having collected and brought to the publisher interviews to people like Eduardo Kac and Roy Ascott, Mario Costa and Robert C. Morgan: our magazine was swarming with texts that were organised and written by and on Bolognini, where the artistic and cultural avant-garde of the last . twenty years was examined

42 Those essays and those conversations moment to break limits and today are collected in an anthological encourage art experts to think – from book, edited by Carocci in the “Storia the interior of the effective dell’Arte” collection and which will be experience of a producer and not of distributed from October: the theoretical construction of a critic “Postdigitale. Conversazioni sull’arte e – over the meaning of the word sulle nuove tecnologie”. The book “digital” (it is enough to read the goes over and documents many years conversation with Simonetta Lux, of Bolognini’s research and theoretical where the author explains, in an exchanges with other artists, curators, incredibly simple and illuminating critics and historians. Together with way, the difference between the already mentioned articles, analogue and digital) and what kind of published in “Luxflux” (among which artist is the person who thinks about there are also two long interviews, the functioning of the instruments respectively of Domenico Scudiero he/she uses and puts in check the and Simonetta Lux), the artist offers sense of the art at the beginning of conversations with Richard Stallman, the twenty-first century. Enrico Pedrini and Gerfried Stocker. With absolute carelessness as regards the limits of the context, Bolognini mixes different topics, gurus of the hacker ethic and of the copyleft with gurus of collecting, famous scholars with enfant prodiges of genetic modifications.

Bolognini himself explains the reason to us in the introduction of this text/research. The art that is based on . the use of technologies has come to a In short, a militant book, which tries to turning point, after a first pioneer clear up mistakes and doubts, period. The art that is linked to digital simplifications and banalities of that technologies is stabilizing: it is enough chaotic hotchpotch, whose definition to see the slow but gradual opening ranges from multimedia to new media of museums and institutions (the “art , from interactive to virtual , from hi- system”) and the introduction of tech to participation . With a precise digital instruments in the production aim: to deconstruct the postmodern of artists that have very little to do idea of art, according to which today, with technology. Therefore, this is the

43 in the artistic research, there is not instruments for the interpretation not any “chance of choice and radicality” of the art, but of the world, and thus any longer, but a self-referential make this experimentation the true indifferentiation in which the avant-garde of the present time. metaphors of art and not the reality are criticized.

Digital technologies”, explains www.bolognini.org/bolognini_PDIG.h Bolognini, “introduce some important tm issues in the artistic experimentation”: www.luxflux.net/museolab/MOSTRE nature of media, bioethics, /bolognini.htm democracy, involvement of the public, emptying of the sense of the authorial www.luxflux.net/n6/artintheory3.htm paternity (and therefore royalties and copyright). These themes are essential

44 The Artist As Artwork In Virtual World – Part 2

Domenico Quaranta

speculator. A bad painter is a bad painter in Second Life too.

However, it could be an interesting project to create the character of a bad painter able to infest with his bad works the citizens’ houses.

Apart from what is produced, we have to say that everything in a virtual world is, first of all, a cultural construct . And everything, including the artist, can be considered as an artistic project. In other words, an avatar artist who works in Second Life, no matter the means he uses, is . the artistic project of a real artist in Playing a specific role has been a Second Life platform. popular strategy in contemporary art. This concept can affect all sectors, not Giorgio de Chirico, in all his life, played just the artistic one. And the good the ironic role of the conservative results depend on how people can “Pictor Optimus”, enemy of every kind work on their virtual (or avatar) alter of modernism. Andy Warhol was able ego. Aimee Weber and Anshe Chung to successfully manage his public (one of the most popular designers mask, like Jeff Koons and Damien and the first millionaire of Second Life Hirst. With Second Life you can respectively) were successful not only create real identities that can become thanks to their work and the contracts independent. they signed: they’ve been able to play Here a Marcel Duchamp could create in an excellent way the role of popular different and several Rrose Selavys; he designer and millionaire building

45 can make them interact with us, and their data: you can read their e-mails, make them more real than himself. He copy their data and see what’s inside can give them a (human, humanoid or their folders. Someone considers it a totally abstract) body, a story, a “digital pornography”. The following behavior. In SL art what is important is project, Vopos (2002), allows to the artist creation. Let’s see some monitor their movements on a world examples. map through a GPS system. 0100101110101101.ORG is now more transparent, but its identity is still incomplete. We have just some clues, some documents and data about their Darko Maver: but is all this enough to prove their existence?

In the following projects, 0100101110101101.ORG introduced two new names: Eva and Franco Mattes. Are they husband and wife? Are they . brother and sister, or cousins? They have the same surname, but Eva Eva e Franco Mattes Mattes is a German actress and singer, Once upon a time there was an one of Werner Herzog’s muses… All artistic group called these doubts about the new identity 0100101110101101.ORG: a misleading mean that it is still a “cultural name, that hid an ambiguous group of construct”, an identity mask. They people. They plagiarized websites, said: “Eva and Franco Mattes are a misrepresented some organizations construct just like (such as the Vatican or the Nike), 0100101110101101.ORG, maybe even created new ones (Darko Maver), and more” [14]. With Portraits, the Mattes interacted with people under different became aware of the huge power of names every time. With their group of virtual worlds, the chance to make projects called “glasnost” (the first one real these masks. And they became was Life Sharing in 2000), aware of their power. Watching Lanai 0100101110101101.ORG chose the Jarrico wearing the clothes she was digital transparency. Life Sharing wearing in 13 Most Beautiful Avatar s allows everybody to enter their is like a revelation: she is saying that computer, shared online through a file the portrait proved her existence. An sharing system, and to interact with avatar is real and not a projection of something.

46 physical elements as violence, decency and sexuality in a virtual world.

.

Even Eva and Franco, in SL, need an avatar. This could seem bizarre, but it is a logical choice: “Since within virtual . worlds you can be whoever and whatever, we find more interesting to Gazira Babeli be ourselves [15]“. Ourselves? They “My body can go barefoot, but my create avatar so similar to Eva and avatar needs Prada shoes.” [17] Franco Mattes that sometimes you can meet them in the real world: Gazira Babeli is one of the many average height, thin and nervous Second Life avatars who decided to body, a sober and dark outfit, black hide the identity of their “real” alter and unruly hair for him, long and ego: it is really frequent for ordinary blond hair for her. Does this mean “to people, but not for popular people be ourselves” in SL? I don’t think so. who usually want to make clear who This means to transform your own they really are. body into a mask, and this mask into a new body. This is because their popularity in SL can be a promotional means in their In SL, Eva and Franco Mattes show the real life. It works for artists, and this is performances by Chris Burden, Vito one of the reasons of Gazira’s interest Acconci, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, in it. She is one of the most popular Gilbert and George [16]. They need it, and estimeed artists of SL. Her otherwise they wouldn’t exist. For this ambiguous identity is one of the reason the performances are a reasons of her popularity. She doesn’t reflection about what happens to a use SL as a promotional means: it is performance when it is interpreted by her own place, the only place where virtual bodies, and about such she can exist. Her works help to draw

47 her portrait and her personality – it is a Yoshikawa rare case, since the avatar is often considered as a mere tool to interact Unlike Gazira, Dancoyote and Juria are with people and create works. Gazira really different from their own avatars. is the irascible witch who unleashes These two artists developed, in earthquakes, throws pizzas and different ways, a similar “formalist” records, imprisons her audience in work, focused on the exploitation of cans of Campbell’s Soup; she is the aesthetic and multimedia rebellious artist thrown out of the potentialities of this tool. They think official art places. She is the only artist SL is a kind of exploitable software who broke SL taboos, she deformed and not a social universe to interact avatars, literally “giving” her own body with. Maybe, unlike Gazira, they away and stealing other avatars’ skins. couldn’t understand that in a virtual world software and social universe n her isolated island (Locus Solus), belong to the same concept: creating Gazira is not so different from Martial an installation always means Canterel, the bizarre inventor who – in interacting with the world. Anyway, Raymond Roussel’s novel [18] – creates their work is appreciated by SL new objects from creative cultural elite and by the Lindens manipulation of language. Gazira themselves, who think it’s the way to manipulates scripts and calls this make their creativity dream come “performances” (even if it is a true. sculpture, a painting or an installation). She experiments on her In real life, Dancoyote Antonelli is DC own skin her actions. Spensley, a not too young artist whose work looks like the late “cyberart” of the first 1990s: digital creations and three-dimensional software. However, in SL he is an avant-garde artist, and he recently collected his most important works in a futuristic museum. But we can’t say that his work improved just thanks to SL. By creating Dancoyote, DC Spensley made Philip Rosedale’s dreams come true. Dancoyote is a . creative, imaginative and dynamic boy; he is aware of his own role and Dancoyote Antonelli & Juria he can make his dreams come true

48 because he understood that in SL “the them and socializing within the art. To only limit is your own imagination” Juria virtual art is about freeing (Does it sound a bit rhetorical? Well, it oneself up to create in ways she finds is one of Lindens’ mottos). impossible in real life.” [19]

Juria Yoshikawa is definitely more Juria Yoshikawa and Dancoyote modest. He appeared in SL for the Antonelli don’t depend on their own first time in 2007, presenting her creators anymore. It seems they have works almost everywhere. She created a new kind of art. Actually, transformed the three-dimensional Juria and Dancoyote are the best spaces of SL into translucent panels work by two artists who understood and coloured lights losing the space the potentialities of a second life. sense, in a sort of visual digital nirvana. She is small, with Oriental features and light blue hair. For this reason some months later it was a surprise to find out that Juria is the [14] – Domenico Quaranta, “L’azione digital artist Lance Shields, popular in più radicale è sovvertire se stessi”. the Japanese new media art scene Interview to Eva and Franco Mattes since the first years of the 1990s. (aka 0100101110101101.ORG). In Eva e Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.ORG): Portraits , by Domenico Quaranta, in the exhibition brochure, Brescia, Fabioparisartgallery, 2007.

15] – In AAVV, Nothing is true, everything is possible , 2007 http://www.0100101110101101.org/ho me/performances/interview.html

. [16] – I’m referring to Synthetic Performances , a collection of re- Shields speaks of Juria in third person: interpretations of classic “She inevitably chooses scales larger performances. Eva and Franco Mattes than conventional gallery work are developing it in Second Life. because she is interested in people Cfr. experiencing the work in a physical http://www.0100101110101101.org/ho way – flying through them, riding on me/performances/index.html

49 [17] – Gazira Babeli, in Tilman Juria virtual art is about freeing Baumgaertel, “My body can walk oneself up to create in ways she finds barefoot, but my avatar needs Prada impossible in real life.” Cfr. shoes” http://memespelunk.org/blog/?page Interview with Gazira Babeli, in _id=39 Nettime , 23 marzo 2007, http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archiv es/nettime-l-0703/msg00032.html http://adaweb.walkerart.org/ [18] – Raymond Roussel, Locus Solus , http://www.thepalace.com/ 1914. Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino 1975 http://adaweb.walkerart.org/project/ homeport/ [19] – “She inevitably chooses scales larger than conventional gallery work http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet- because she is interested in people strike/ experiencing the work in a physical way – flying through them, riding on http://www.delappe.net/ them and socializing within the art. To http://www.simgallery.net/

50 Julien Maire, Leonardo And The Visual Anatomy

Marco Mancuso

reduced size, both temporal and spatial, is useful to the artist to isolate the created play and to generate, in the spectator, an inner enjoyment, an observation that eliminates the distance between the artistic event and inserts it as much as possible in the usual perception, in order to disassemble it from the interior.

In some performances, surprise and The bewilderment between reality tampering with reality are direct, and illusion, between perceptive simple, and for this reason even more habits and a new way of watching astonishing. Like in the “Digit” through the video camera. A false performance, present also in the last step that interrupts the normal Transmediale and Sonic Acts festivals, rhythm of perception and let us spare in showing a too much banal perceive other possible re- situation, a man, the artist, that constructions of what we see. A writes, sitting at his little desk, among jocose swing between these two the public, but magic in hiding the levels is the trace that links the work trick thanks to which the naked finger of Julien Maire, a French artist living flows across the sheet of paper, now in Berlin who, through leaving ink trails with a simple touch. performances and installations, In other works of his, it is illusion itself apparently very different from each that is deconstructed, that illusion other, creates moments and spaces of created by the medium, which is compression, overlap and perceptive intended as a structure and illusion. mechanism of construction of reality, now unconsciously assimilated in our Small space-time sections, in which usual mechanisms of vision, one of he decomposes the optical vision and the realities that we experiment every its interpretation. Small, because the day.

51 levels.

Finally, in installations like “Exploding Camera” and “Low Resolution Cinema”, Julien Maire does not only disassemble and reconstruct, but he literally dissects and amputates instruments that we generally use, and he offers to the spectator this anatomy of the camera, in order to

. encourage him/her to look for a new functioning, he does not create the Julien Maire looks at the medium with medium, but puts into action that the same Dada approach with which process that Rosalind Krauss he sees reality, he disassembles, (theoretician and author of deconstructs the functioning of “Reinventing the Medium”, edited in perception like that of the camera. In Italy by Bruno Mondadori, co-founder the case of the medium he looks for and co-editor of “October” magazine, machines, almost always analogue, a veteran of “Artforum” in the Sixties because they enable him to act in an and Seventies) defines as the “re- artisan way on their functioning. invention” of the medium.

Like in the live cinema of the beautiful “Demi-Pas”, a reconstruction of the narrative flow of a short film, built through the sequence of mechanical slides, created by the artist like small transparent overlapped theatres. The illusion of the cinema motion is not generated by the flowing of horizontal fixed modules, like it happens in the film, but by single modules hiding, in themselves, the motion that is put . into action, in real time, by the artist. Whereas the spatial plan creates Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: another illusion, that of the depth of Julien, what is your artistic and field, a fictitious tridimensionality, cultural background? And what is the produced by the overlap of artistic tradition to what you refer? compressed and two-dimensional Julien Maire: I started my studies by

52 attending a classic art school, ended understand their functioning. Modern in 1995, which was not linked to the technologies are very complex and environment of the new media, but difficult to understand, unlike the more connected to disciplines like mechanical ones, which can be more painting, sculpture, and so on a small easily understood, reproduced and school, in Metz, where we were free modified. I work in a similar way to to develop our ideas and projects. I Leonardo Da Vinci’s one, when, to was initially focused on the concept draw in the best possible way the and idea of perception, that is, how to interior of a human body, he simply represent the world in 3 dimensions, needed to look into it to understand by using modes in 2 dimensions. A what it was like. I have many ideas on simple but very important idea to me: how to work exactly when I how to compress and reproduce the understand the deep functioning of a real world in another way, with machine. another two-dimensional system. I thus began my research with drawing and sculpture, and then moving quickly to mechanics and its integration with computers.

Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: How do you work on your machines? Both in “Low Resolution Cinema” and “Exploding Camera”, but also in “Demi-Pas” there is a manic attention to the construction of your . apparatuses. Where have you learnt Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: this and how do you have new ideas, When do you understand that a how do you work on them? certain mechanism is important to Julien Maire: I’ve learnt everything I you? Or rather, do you first have an know by simply breaking the idea and then you try to realize it, or machines and the mechanical do you understand the potentiality of instruments I then use. I started to a system and at that moment you work with mechanisms and have the idea of how to use it? electronics about 10 years ago and I’ve Julien Maire: It depends. Sometimes, I learnt everything by looking into the have new ideas completely by chance machines and the different spare and therefore I look for a way of parts, and by trying mainly to

53 realizing them, sometimes in an technicians that have now to deal efficient way and sometimes not. with the world of art. I think this could Somehow, it is the same approach of be sometimes a problem, you can the experimental cinema, although hear it often in the presentation of I’m much more interested in many installations, technically perfect, producing a real film, maybe with complex, that are cool, but not really experimental techniques, rather than works of art. They don’t communicate experimenting with different this. techniques to see, later, whether the final effect is interesting or not. I like controlling things, being sure that something happens because I want it, working, obviously, in an experimental way: it is a process that demands much work and it can also be rather frustrating. I constantly look for new ways to do things, different techniques with which I like experimenting. If you look at the daily . life with the Internet, many artists share, today, information, increase Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: their competences and skills on a The idea of “magic” seems to be very certain software: it is a different way important in your works. I think, for of relating to technologies. I love the example, that “Digit” is one of the mechanical elements, the dynamism simplest but, at the same time, most of the approach they demand surprising performances I saw in the last few years. In your opinion, what is Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: the relationship between “magic” and Therefore, why do you think some the theories of Increased Reality, and artists that are completely analogue those of experimental cinema or the and mechanical like you are invited tricks of the pre-cinema age? more and more often to take part in festivals dealing with media art in Julien Maire: When you watch a film, general or specifically with digital art? this is actually a sort of illusion, something magic: it consists of many Julien Maire: Mainly because they moving images producing an overall come from the world of classical art. effect. Cinema is illusion in itself, and In the media art, many protagonists it’s interesting wondering why are former programmers or

54 spectators in a cinema are so deeply there is the idea of interaction, but the involved in this two-dimensional only interaction characterising me is process that isn’t, after all, reality, but that between my machines and me. its often unreal representation. But I think that I love, at the same Cinema is a magic process, in my time, in “Digit”, that the public is so opinion, and the magic on which close to me, I like arousing the illusion is based is what I’ve always spectators’ curiosity to understand a drawn inspiration from. I’m rather simple and keen, precise, sometimes afraid of the word “magic”, certainly not impressive mechanism. I I prefer the word “prestige”, which think I’ll work again in this course, in refers to something more mechanical, the future. It’s, for me, a sort of optical, almost manual. In “Demi-Pas”, aesthetic research, I love this kind of everything is, at the same time, very approach. clear, there isn’t any illusion, trick, everything works as you can see. In “Digit” (or also in “Pieces de Monnaie”), instead, magic is created only if the spectator is physically present in the performance, because it’s necessary to create a relationship between the public and me. I aim at creating a play with the spectator, who has to look at me not so much as a performer but as an image, as a film, immersed in . reality. In “Digit”, I use a tracking camera and the effect is very simple, Photo by Marco Mancuso but I manage to bring a certain quality of the image into reality: this is the Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: illusion I create This tension can be found also in your installations, which seem alive and Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: allow the public to look into the The surprise factor in the spectator is mechanism, to understand their thus very important to you, and also functioning, the way in which they the relationship with the public, with manage to represent reality. We’re the space surrounding you. You thinking about works like “Exploding provoke the public by changing what Camera” or “Low Resolution Cinema”, they normally perceive as reality for example

Julien Maire: Behind your question, Julien Maire: As a matter of fact, this

55 is the reason why I don’t like a perfect work in this sense, it’s the recordings, but everything is live, it ideal example of this matter: in this happens in front of the present public, case, the film is made thanks to the both with an installation and a live explosion of lights and an alternative event. In “Exploding Camera”, the and deconstructed use of a well- room is completely dark, and the known medium such as the video public is curious and encouraged to camera. move around the installation to understand its mechanism

Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: You’ve been defined as an archaeologist of media, but we think it has to be specified that you’re special. That is, you’re that kind of artists who are not only able to reproduce an analogue media, but literally to re-invent it, finding new ways of using it. According to Krauss’ . theories, you create a new use of a Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: certain medium, by representing “Exploding Camera” has a rather reality through the deconstruction of strong political concept, since it a well-known mechanism. How do reproduces the real atrocities of war you relate to these theories, which through an absolutely alternative and often remain only words, but in your deconstructed use of the traditional case find a practical application? medium of the video camera. We Julien Maire: I’m personally very think this is a very interesting short interested in showing a new reality circuit through an alternative use of a certain Julien Maire: I had the idea of medium. If you want to make a film “Exploding Camera” almost 2 years on a certain topic, you have to after the events of 11 September. I was develop your own medium that has to rather shocked by the fact that the be the most suitable for that topic. In video camera had begun to be a “Demi-Pas”, for example, to tell the primary instrument to record criminal story I tell, I use a specific medium in a and deathly events, a real particular and certainly deconstructed transformation for an object I love way, in order to develop that precise very much and that is generally used idea and story. “Exploding Camera” is

56 in an artistic and interesting way. I Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: was very surprised by the fact that Do you consider the concept of few people talked about this topic. It illusionism as a real form of art and is thus very important to me that the not as a mere form of entertainment? public understand the idea that is behind “Exploding Camera” and for Julien Maire: I’ve partly answered this reason I’m usually very careful to before. I love working on a small scale, explain the installation, to give in a performative way, creating a information, although I don’t like relationship also with a small talking about my works very much. At audience, in a special atmosphere. I the same time, I like that the public love working on a small scale, in small see the work and maybe understand places, which contrast with the the supporting idea even long time phantasmagoric atmospheres, typical afterwards, maybe by looking for of the shows of illusionism. In this information on the Internet or through sense, yes, I think illusionism can be other sources considered as a form of art.

57 precise mechanisms, to be more and more precise, with more and more simplicity

Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: Does this attention to the story occur also in your installations?

Julien Maire: Yes, in “Low Resolution Cinema”, for example, the story is developed on the idea of the city of . Berlin . The project came into life after Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: a stay here in Berlin some years ago, How do you work on the story of your for a representation of the city in works, for example “Demi-Pas”? That contrast with the images that tourist is, do you create a story basing on the normally capture of it. Therefore, I optical mechanisms you have at your spent a year in gathering photographs disposal or do you build, every time, a and images: I love old photographs, I specific system for a special passage collect them and some cost me a lot, I of your storyboard? like that they have a very low resolution. The screen, in the Julien Maire: In general, I like creating installation, is divided into two parts, a series of mechanical processes I use there is a horizon that divides the when I need them, although I can framing into two parts: to do this, the obviously develop specific objects video projector was deconstructed as that are used in precise moments of it happens in other works of mine. I the story I tell. Each of the modules worked, therefore, almost like a you see in “Demi-Pas” demanded a photographer, a painter: by very long time to be realised, but in deconstructing the potentiality of the the end I used a much more little part system at the moment at which I cut of those I had actually created. Some the lens of the LCD, I operated of them are also used in another film similarly to the way in which (a work that has not been finished yet, photographers work carefully on their with a real storyboard, dialogues and negatives. The line on the LCD is a script), which is entitled “The physically present, like in the painting, Empty”, where many ideas of “Demi- allowing the final image to have an Pas” are used but in a simpler way I’m abstract and minimal geometry, moving a lot in this course, that is, in facilitated also by the use of a very being more and more focused on low resolution that allows me to

58 increase the perspective of the deal with the sound: I like that sound projection. doesn’t prevail over the image on which spectators have to concentrate, it has to be, therefore, a comment on images. In “Demi-Pas”, there are, therefore, traces of Pierre Chaffer, Pierre Bastien and many others. In “Low Resolution Cinema”, instead, music was composed by a Japanese musician, who developed an interface with Max/MSP that generates the sound connected with the movement of the projector. Anyway, for some . time I’ve been thinking about a Marco Mancuso and Claudia D’Alonzo: performance linked with “Low How do you relate to the sound and Resolution Cinema”, and about some music that are present in your works? ideas with musician Pierre Bastien, In some of them, they seem to be of who is a dear friend of mine, whom I minor importance. In others, they are feel very close to me and with whom I almost a presence of comment. Have share an approach that is certainly you ever thought of developing a real similar to audiovisual experience. Up audiovisual project with a musician, to now, we’ve performed together such as, for example, Pierre Bastien, only once in London , when we met, who has an approach to music that is by improvising: he played the trumpet very similar to the approach you have on a projection of mine, but it’s clear to images? we could certainly develop something much more complex. We’ll see in the Julien Maire: I think I have serious future. problems with sound, I don’t know very much of it. At the same time, for “Demi-Pas” I asked another director to http://julienmaire.ideenshop.net/

59 Silvia Bottiroli / Zapruder: Conversazioni

Silvia Scaravaggi

Conversazioni (2008) is the first movement of the biennial project Generazione Tondelli 2008/2009 . It is curated by Silvia Bottiroli, in collaboration with Zapruder Filmmakersgroup.

The work consists in five video- dialogues with the five winners of Premio Tondelli from 1999 to 2007: Mimmo Borrelli, Davide Enia, Stefano “To become is never to imitate, not to Massini, Fausto Paravidino and Letizia “do like”, nor to conform to a model, Russo. Its original version was whether it’s of justice or of truth. presented for the first time during the There is no terminus from which you Festival Riccione TTV, together with a set out, none which you arrive at or sound installation which you ought to arrive at. Nor are (Check out alle 16) in five rooms at there two terms which are Sixty Hotel in Riccione. exchanged. The question “What are you becoming?” is particularly stupid. These two versions show the double For as someone becomes, what he is nature of the work: the oral narration, becoming changes as much as he like the dialogue, and the analysis of does himself. Becomings are not time and space through theatre and phenomena of imitation or videos. Conversazioni is a visual assimilation, but of a double capture, project, an intimate show. Silvia of non-parallel evolution, of nuptials Bottiroli, the creator of the project, is between two reigns. Nuptials are a contemporary theatre critic and always against nature. Nuptials are expert and she works through critical the opposite of a couple. There are no essays and projects and productions. longer binary machines: question- answer, masculine-feminine, man- She said: “In the future, Conversazioni animal, etc. This could be what a will be just a video performance. It conversation is – simply the outline of was presented in this double version a becoming…” – Gilles Deleuze just for Riccione TTV, for the first

60 presentation during the festival. We “The real nature of Conversazioni is wanted a special occasion. Our the video-dialogue, and it will be so in reference point is Pier Vittorio the future”, Silvia Bottiroli said. “The Tondelli, who knows well the Riviera”. Zapruder members are video-artists who also work in theatre. They worked with Motus, Fanny & Alexander, Societas Raffaello Sanzio… They have a special relationship with theatre and video-art. I worked with them on the shooting, the set and the montage”.

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Some texts of the video come from Tondelli‘s text, Camere separate; they help to think about dialogue. Writing is a starting point in life.

Conversazioni is made up of five . different chapters, 20 minutes each, where two actors, the critic and the About the video production, she said: playwright, discuss following the path “They did a great job by using two of alphabet vowels. Each vowel is fixed 45 degree cameras. We made necessary in order to suggest a the shooting as easiest as possible, significant word, a memory, or a the montage was almost unnecessary. keyword. The brochure text says: “The And we never said it, but the video alphabet vowels are the starting point was filmed on an empty theatre stage, to find five essential words: it’s not with a closed curtain on the back. For theatre because theatre is only a part this reason, our work is also a of a dialogue about the world”. reflection about time and space in theatre”. The video was produced in collaboration with Zapruder In these conversations with artists Filmmakersgroup – a group made up there is an implicit reflection about of Monaldo Moretti, Nadia Ranocchi, time and space on the stage, but also David Zamagni, directors of the video.

61 about visual and sound space. In this Silvia Bottiroli said: “Before starting case the video is used as an invisible the work my question was: what and silent means to show the would the audience like to listen from physicality of dialogue, out of real and two young playwrights? We focused finite time and space. on what happens in a non- conventional dialogue, trying to avoid to comment. So, we wanted to find a new way of talking about ourselves. Conversations are also improv isations, they can create something unexpected” .

. www.riccioneteatro.it/ttv/subsection. php?subsez=64 In these conversations with artists, they want to find a new kind of critic. www.riccioneteatro.it/ttv/repertorio _sub.php?subsez=59

62 Paul Amlehn / Robert Fripp, Consciences Synthesis

Giuseppe Cordaro

guitarist (e.g. Fripp)… The energy of which is transmitted to an electric guitar with a guitar synthesizer pickup/interface (e.g. the Roland GK- 3) connecting to a guitar synthesizer module (e.g. the GR-33). The output of this being routed to a digital audio processor to add guitar effects to the sound. This then is routed to an array of digital delay units (e.g. TC Electronic The Seven Words project was recently TC2290). The digital delays are used to presented at the Chelsea Art Museum create audio loops of various lengths of New York, as a part of the Sound of time. The common method being The Sonic Self Art exhibition, , with that one unit would be used to create some guests as David Marcus Abir, one complete loop, then another unit Mikhail Acrest, Damian Catera, DJ to create a different loop. These loops Olive, Phil Dadson and Fiorentina De would then be combined into the final Bia. audio output, being faded in and out by Fripp during the performance. The The project is a musical work divided loops might not necessarily be heard into three different moments ( 1.Untitled / Queer Space Symmetrical; during their creation, but may be 2.Kriya / At the End of Time; faded in gradually. The audio from the 3.Ophiuchus Improvisation / Queer digital delays would then be Reflection Harmonic Minor processed by more digital electronics ) with (e.g. the Eventide Harmonizer), then Robert Fripp‘s soundscapes recorded becoming the final composition.” through Paul Amlehn‘s words. The new digital technology included The artists’ purpose is to create a digital delay devices, digital audio perfect and powerful mixture of voice processors, and guitar synthesizers. and soundscape, in order to catch the The audio flow would typically be: A listener’s conscious and unconscious

63 levels. The project was broadcast on Paul Amlehn: The project was several radio stations in UK, Australia developed according to its own laws, and USA. We can’t fail to mention that dictated to me in my various roles as this project has also an important servant, high priest, and receptacle, of humanitarian value, since these two the Magnum Opus artists decided to donate the earnings from the sale of a CD in limited edition Giuseppe Cordaro: How did you to the Cork Street Charity Open Art manage to work so far from each Exhibition , that this year will help other? How was it working online? children infected with HIV virus. Paul Amlehn: Any distance was transcended with the inevitable convergence of affinities.

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Paul Amlehn is currently focusing on a new photographic project, Traum and . Trauma, used as the visual part of his Giuseppe Cordaro: Your purpose was collaboration with the music of to create a powerful mixture of Robert Fripp. We asked him to tell us soundscape and voice. Paul, did you something more about Seven Words. enjoy working with sounds? Giuseppe Cordaro: How did the The Paul Amlehn: Anything I said in Seven Words project start? regards to this question would only be Paul Amlehn: Across the sea of time a finger pointing at the moon and space. Along a thread of spirit and Giuseppe Cordaro: Robert, what is the blood positive element that voice could Giuseppe Cordaro: And how did you bring to your soundscape? develop it? Paul Amlehn: In Robert’s absence, I’ll

64 take the liberty of fielding this broadcast from an automobile question, and my response is: a mounted with bullhorn speakers structure, configuration, or pattern of driving through the streets of Yeosu in physical, biological, or psychological South Korea during the arts festival phenomena so integrated as to there; installed in sensory deprivation constitute a functional chambers and isolation pods in New unit with properties not derivable by York (at Blue Light Floatation) and summation of its parts. London (at The Floatworks) so that individuals can experience the work in Giuseppe Cordaro: How did you a theta brain-wave state, free of decide to broadcast The Seven Words external sensory stimuli. I am also on the radio too? talking with scientists about transmitting the work off-world, Paul Amlehn: Radio dissemination several light years into interstellar was one of the organic outgrowths of space, an extreme gesture outwards the project. The Seven Words will also as a counterpoint to the inner journey be installed in galleries and museums; experienced in the isolation tanks.

65 work and one of Robert’s soundscapes. It is in the final stages of editing as we speak:

Paul Amlehn – Text, Vocals

Robert Fripp – Guitar, Soundscapes

Joan Jeanrenaud – Cello, Electronics

Jim White – Drums, Percussion .

Giuseppe Cordaro: I think it’s amazing that the earnings from the sale of a CD in limited edition will go to charity. How and when did you develop this initiative?

Paul Amlehn: Its immensely gratifying to be able to contribute something, in a concrete sense, to allay the suffering of others, especially, in this case, . children with AIDS. Hopefully the work raises some money for what is a Robert, as you know, is the founding very worthy cause. The idea of the member of King Crimson, and has donation arose much the way the played with musicians such as David work itself did, out of a humanistic Bowie, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno. impulse Joan was the cellist for The Kronos Quartet, and has worked with Giuseppe Cordaro: Are you working composers such as John Cage, on some new projects, together or Morton Feldamn, and Philip Glass. Jim individually? is the drummer from The Dirty Three, and has also played with Nick Cave, Paul Amlehn: At the moment, two and PJ Harvey. projects: the first, an experimental film work, titled: Traum und Trauma (Dream and Trauma), which consists of still images from my photographic http://chelseaartmuseum.org/

66 67 Soundmuseum.fm: The Sound Gallery

Marco Mancuso

Planningtorock, Marc Bijl , to begin only.

The two directors explain the project with clear and right words: con Soundmuseum.fm, vogliamo creare un luogo dove il pubblico possa ascolta opere sonore assolutamente uniche in uno spazio virtuale tranquillo, libero da rumori e interruzioni. Un luogo accessibili a Presented also at Dutch Institute for tutti da qualsiasi parte del mondo, Media Art di Amsterdam, the next 14th dove la gente possa ascoltare lavori of September an online environment originali e dove il suono possa for sound art and concentrated emergere al di sopra dell’ambiente listening will be launghedon the visivo che lo circonda. Internet. Similar to a real museum, the sound art collection of Soundmuseum.fm is carefully assembled by the curators and editorial staff, according to their visions.

Born from the mind and enthusiasm of two dutch professionists , Nathalie Bruys and Katja van Stiphout, musician and visual artist the first, graphic designer the second, the . project already collected artists like James Beckett, Cilia Erens, Anne La Speaking with the editorial Berge , Tomoko Mukaiyama, Telco Soundmuseum.fm staff, you should Systems, Kim Hiorthy, Radboud Mens, know that the museum constists of a Edwin van der Heide, Sasker gallery, a depot and a listening room. Scheerder, Dorit Crysler, One enters through the gallery, the

68 depot forms the core of the museum. can therefore not be downloaded. In the listening room however one can Visitors will enter inside the gallery to comply a play list, and listen to play follow the exhibitions organized time lists of other visitors by time. The deposit will be the museum beating heart, after a long Every month, Soundmuseum.fm will archiving job according to the present a new exhibition compiled by different caegories (electronic, the museum and guest curators. The acoustic, experimental, noise, exhibited sounds originate from the sampling, vocal, solo and live) art world, from underground, from all labelling system. corners of the earth. They can consist of field recordings or compositions, The gallery will be considered as the can last seconds or hours, and can “physical” space of the museum: range in character from cinematic visitors will enter inside the space sound to silence. “Attention” and through a “display room”, and will “precision” are essential concepts in deeply access inside the museum. all of this. Each exhibition will be Side to the “display room”, they will accompanied by an editorial written explore the deposit but also a library, by the curator and/or the featured a shop, an office and a listening room, audio artist. in which eveyone will compile his own playlist and will share it with those of the other visitors.

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Even if the museum is lacking in . historial archive about sound art and in theorical texts of the last decades, The works in the museum and the Soundmuseum.fm was born with all depot are not ‘applicable’, but credentials to be a real “sound authentic works that are to be museum” on the Net. Challenging exhibited as such. The sound pieces

69 conventions and preconceptions about difficulty on managing online museums, Soundmuseum could have his strenght inside his own nature: to www.soundmuseum.fm/ be organized as a real museum, a virtual “physical” gallery.

70 Bruce Mcclure’s Sculptural Material

Bertram Niessen

performances, or sections of expanded cinema, based on the phenomenon of optical synthesis of sound, have been screened within festivals of electronic art, festivals of experimental cinema, but also in art galleries or real cinema halls. Moreover, it seems that his dream is to be included in the permanent collection at Whitney Museum (in which some of his more important I had the opportunity to attend Bruce colleagues, such as Sandra Gibson and McClure‘s audio-video performance Luis Recorder, are present), even if his twice: the first time, in Rome in 2006 autartic and almost anarchic nature at Dissonanze (where I was involved always made his life difficult when he as a curator) and the second time this entered into relations with the world year at Sonic Acts in Amsterdam of art and galleries. How can I say they (where Digicult introduced Otolab’s are wrong? live “Circo Ipnotico”).

Although he put on two very different live performances, in both cases the feeling was the same: the work of the New York artist is maybe a little to cultivated and refined to be appreciated by the audience of a festival which is often made up of yokels, as well as too excessively experimental and naïf to be suitable for a gallery or for the rooms of a . museum. In short, an hybrid, which is what usually fascinates me Bruce McClure‘s background as an architect is, in my opinion, a very On the other hand, his film important element to understand his

71 work and the nature of his powerful and obsessive, don’t performance. Fascinated by resemble as much the fruit of a film phenomena of alternation between maker, or of a photographer, or of a darkness and light, which can video-artist, as they resemble the emphasise the performative artworks in movement of sculptors environment and can also involve and such as Bruce Nauman or Paul cloud the audience, McClure is an Sharrits. obsessive live performer, who is constantly working on the mechanics I’ve been a bit longwinded because I of his modified projectors, real tools think that the work of Bruce McClure almost made alive by the touch of his is absolutely unique in the hands. And the almost sculptural international panorama of audiovisual nature of his audiovisual composition, art, even if it is sometimes difficult to the physical relation with the digest (his live performances has the object/tool, with the film, the little defect of being a little too long, mannerism he has in handling the at least for the frantic environment of metal discs, the ink pigments, sound festivals). Other starting points for pedals and different objects, the further remarks come from the materiality of a sound that is often interview that Bertram Niessen held with Bruce .

72 40,075 kilometers long. This line would equal the diameter of the earth at the equator. Naturally, it would have to be composed of segments and I used a metronome as a way of timing my work and keeping track of the distance I covered. So many strokes, from the top to the bottom of a page at a certain beat, andante for example, and I could calculate the . distance I covered in a day. The metronome and its tic-tic swing of Bertram Niessen: When did you start the weighted pendulum was a good doing live performances? companion. I particularly appreciated Bruce McClure: The first house I the gradated wand and how by sliding remember was in the suburbs of the weight relative to the fulcrum you Washington DC . It had a basement could change the tempo of its motion. that was very cool and dark and I would entertain friends there by flipping the light switch on and off. Moving rapidly from light to dark made night pictures appear inside our eyes. I was told that this was bad for the light bulb and that I shouldn’t do but the temptation was strong and the chemical surges were difficult to forget.

. Bertram Niessen: Your background is quite unusual and diverse. Could you Around that time I was at a party tell us something about your previous watching the influence of a strobe works? light on the blades of a fan. I began to work with fans and strobes and Bruce McClure: When I graduated patterned cardboard discs 40 cm . in from architectural school I moved to diameter that I could spin at high New York . Still looking for fun I would speeds. In the flash of the strobe undertake projects outside my varied from 50 to 30,000 per minute vocational duties as a draftsman. Early and I could make drawings in time by in the 1990′s I decided to draw a line

73 simply changing the relative speed of a commitment to the 16 millimeter the light with respect to the moving movie projector as an additional time disc. instrument capable of conditioning space. I was ready to spring with the The stacks of paper, 47 x 62 projector in hand over the floodlights centimeters , coved with pencil lines of vaudeville and into the arc of the seemed like an indulgence especially audience. This would not be an in a city where friendly space is hard experiment, nothing would be to find. Bars and dance parties regarded as an anomaly or errant data became my places to work instead of and any discoveries that can be made the living room floor and I found are in propria persona . myself rediscovering new territory, performative in nature, where time was the axis of rotation and gallery space seemed irrelevant.

Bertram Niessen: And when did you start relating your artworks to the world of experimental cinema?

Bruce McClure: Notwithstanding this enlightenment, my ambition urged me to move my precinematic . diversions into the movie house. I sought a sober audience seated Bertram Niessen: How do you develop comfortably and the notion that the relation between audio and video? perhaps what I was doing with the spinning discs could be considered Bruce McClure: One of the beauties of “experimental.” Anthology Film the projectors I use is that they have Archives was a place with theatres optical sound. With this system one and had a reputation for testing the form of energy can be converted into boundaries of cinema. Performing another. A waveform pictured as a there with my intervalled light changing ratio of light to dark on the seemed perfectly appropriate, film surface is converted by a light however when the lights came up I beam and cathode into electrical was told that my stroboscopic discs output amplified and made audible by were not cinema and belonged in loudspeakers. The projector has an galleries. After that I decided to integrated anatomy of giving broaden my circumstances by making designed to satisfy both the eyes and

74 the ears and leaves little waste. Film in the silent nativity scene for my performances serves the picture performative light and sound is a lamp and the sound lamp signals to convention that disappears in the be pushed and pulled by the darkness and is lost in the haze of projectionist. The camera meanwhile shuttered lamplight. has been omitted as needfully deficient, greedy for silver and untidy, What I do is to try to sound out leaving behind tons of artifacts that through the darkness enjoying every demand to be curated and archived. minute of it before someone else Preconceived by cinematic constructs turns on the lights.

75 Crack! Live Electronics In Palmaria

Annamaria Monteverdi

visual/sound narration was showed at the same time on four laptops, technological performances, environmental installations with really amazing theatrical performances: this was the landscape brought by cRack! . From experimental electronics to techno, from dub and noise to industrial sounds in order to mix the electronic organism and the natural

The first edition of the environmental environment. art exhibition Genius Loci, curated by However, nowadays what is the real Federica Forti, was inaugurated on rebellious art? Giacomo Verde wrote July 31 st at Palmaria island, in front of these lines about cRack! : “The most the town of Portovenere (Spoleto). interesting art of the last century was And in this exhibition you could find based on the violation of codes, the special section, entitled cRack! conventions and styles that belonged Live electronics, that I curated. I to specific genres and trends. In the invited Motus, otolab, Giacomo Verde past it was definitely a useful kind of and Badsector. art because it answered the need to The exhibition thought of art as a give importance to the unexpected special landscape including the versus the normalization subjected to observer, a sort of reflective and mass consumption laws. But today perceptive path, which means a normalization means striking actions; strong involvement. The live the mass consumption is split and electronic art in cRack! was like an personalized. The rebelliousness has “ecosystem” made of symbiosis and become the norm. What in the past cRack! connections between languages and was the outrageous has codes, trying to involve the audience become the confusing croak of in an environment that stirs the hundreds of frogs in a pond. Living perceptions of everybody. Special beyond codes, in this constant frog electronic devices through which the croaking, is what “people” have to

76 feel: in this way they can be one of the first to experiment net and manipulated into useless desires and interactive art. In Palmaria he goals. At present, what is needed is a performed A mettere mano through kind of art that can create new codes, sound and video live by the electro- work together with people, break noise musician Bad Sector: it was a conventions, stand out from the group performance because the chorus of frogs, in order to produce audience break televisions and new experiences that go beyond transform it into authentic art objects. social and aesthetic critics”. Its purpose is to reflect on the creative and collective recovery of the media. During this collective action, Verde filmed live what was happening to create an amazing abstract set made of circuits, copper wires and plaster.

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So, cRack now means socialization of technological knowledge, creation of a community through the Web, birth of a new kind of art that gathers and mixes old technologies (analogue) . with new ones (digital). In this way, some groups of artists think of Giacomo Verdesaid: “Sight is one of themselves as the “creators” of a new the most misleading senses. When language influenced by the Web, the you don’t understand what’s in front open source and graphic art. of you, you have to act and in that moment illusion gradually disappears. Motus, otolab and Giacomo Verde are In a period like this in which what is trying to put together the aesthetic really important is the materiality of experience with technological art, images, we need tactile and dialogue through different kinds of media (live experiences trying to get rid of the set, video art and theatre). Giacomo borders between art and non-art, Verde was the video art pioneer and sight and touch, saying and doing”.

77 Television is an untouchable object Daniela Nicolò and Enrico Casagrande that hypnotizes who’s watching it. TV (known as Motus), are members of recovers if it’s debunked through the most important Italian breaking and assembling. We have to experimental theatre company. In get rid of what is superfluous and add Palmaria they performed their recent the audience’s creativity, and the film based on the theatre project Ics – result will be a powerful mixture of Racconti Crudeli della Giovinezza. It’s five senses. Free creativity versus the about two boys living in a situation of immobility of TV. It becomes a existential and urban degradation: performing situation. they are the symbol of a restless generation. The authors said that the film was produced without any script through the editing of several travel videos filmed in Italian and European suburbs, French banlieues and the abandoned colonies in Emilia Romagna (Italian region).

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Otolab from Milan performed in Palmaria its Circo Ipnotico, a live audio-visual improvisation through the use of synthesizers and laptops while the artists deconstruct MPEGs and modify video images. Otolab’s . cRack! uses the low tech concept to produce hypnotic effects. Bertand The fascination of urban borders and Niessen wrote about cRack! : the personal experience of those who “Attacking what is inside the boxes, lived in those areas made the film very machines, hardware and software. important. It is like a manifesto of But, most of all, attacking the Motus art, whose purpose is to imagination, the first and most social highlight the contradictions of the technology. Attacking perceptions, present society: our ambitions have breaking the time and space always to face this feeling of loss and conventions. Hypnotizing”. dejection.

78 It is a mature work influenced by spiritual path. In Palmaria, Motus American independent cinema, and it presented the video-installation ; is a tribute to Gus Van Sant and his the main character was Silvia way of telling stories about the lost Calderoni who skates through youth that tries to find its own abandoned buildings, degraded areas, leaving behind her the ruins. RUN

79 Machines And Souls

Barbara Sansone

Behind the scenes of this event, there are Montxo Algora and José Luis de Vicente, both commissioners who are linked to ArtFutura and interested in the development of the new art in the international field.

In the rich website that is devoted to the exhibition, Albert Einstein is quoted: “The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the “Machines and Souls”, an extremely fundamental emotion which stands at well chosen title for an exhibition that the cradle of true art and true science” is really worth visiting. . And, in fact, some of the presented works seem to cross over into magic, Housed by the National Museum playing with the conceptual “Centro de Arte Reina Sofía” in Madrid possibilities, given by that hybrid till 13 October 2008, the great territory where all of the technological “Máquinas y Almas” exhibition disciplines and the necessity to re- investigates the points of intersection interpret a world in a rapid aesthetic in which science and art have met and social transformation, to during their respective routes in the reproduce life and intelligence, to last decade. By exploring the redefine identity, intimacy, property relationship between art and the and collaboration converge. other spaces of generation of knowledge and by showing how the one can be put into the service of the other in the search for beauty, the exhibition in Madrid reveals how imagination and creativity manage, after all, to shorten (or even eliminate) the distance between the digital sector and emotion.

80 . rotate, melt, dissolve, brave gravity, react in the presence of spectators, In the room A1 in the Sabatini building, who can modify them with their the spectators that already know the voice. Simply beautiful. history of media can quickly pass, just for the respect for the organisation. As a matter of fact, there are works that are now “old” (such as the very “draft” 3D model of Pierre Huyghe’s “One Million Kingdoms” of 2001 or the instrument of data visualization “On Translation: Social Networks” by Antoni Muntadas of 2006), projects that are more interesting in the course of their development than in an exhibition (like the documentary . archive on zexe.net, by Antoni Abad), And this is just the beginning. Going too naïve works (like Vuk Cosic’s on, spectators are bewitched by the animated paintings), others that are magic light effects by British artist too (or even exclusively) scientific (like Paul Friedlander: “The Enigma of Natalie Jeremijenko and Ángel Light, Spinors, Wave Function” and Borrego’s “UrbanSpaceStation”) and “Abstract Cosmology” (this original others that are almost annoying (such work was specially created for as Harun Farocki’s “Deep Play”, which “Máquinas y Almas”). He is an artist starts from an interesting concept, and scientist, who graduated in but applies it by using no less than a physics and mathematics, and makes football match). light a mouldable substance, However, you should not discourage. managing to do that very well. If the “Ampliación” on the first floor has in world were dominated by more store very pleasant surprises. When creative than commercial necessities, you enter, you are welcomed by a in all of the living-rooms, in place of hypnotic video, whose protagonist is a the old hearth, instead of a television metallic liquid. Behind the thin wall, there would be a work like his. No there are, in the flesh, the beautiful photographs, no descriptions, no ferrofluid sculptures by Sachiko videos can tell the beauty of these Kodama, animated by magnets and kinetic sculptures, which are algorithms. It is a dance of drops and composed also by sounds and translucent protrusions, that develop, aleatory projections.

81 The route continues with an installation by talented Madrilenian . Daniel Canogar. All his work is focused In an exhibition that is so interested in on the alteration to the traditional the technosocial realities of photo size and it aims at contemporaneity, a work that based overwhelming the public with a series its contents on the Web 2.0 could not of images to change their identity in but be there. And here is the the space of the show. Here “Listening Post” installation by Ben “Palimpsesto” is presented; it is a wall Rubin and Mark Hansen, which has of bulbs that are illuminated by a received many prizes and allows you projected light, reproducing the to listen to fragments of spectator’s silhouette. conversations from Internet Emotions continue with three chatrooms. It has an aesthetic that is “interactive mirrors” by Israeli typical of the old monitors with green industrial designer (interviewed by phosphorus, a careful sonorisation Marco Mancuso for May 2006 issue 14 which makes use also of the sounds of of “Digimag” – the LEDs modifying the fonts (Ben http://www.digicult.it/digimag/articl Rubin is a sound artist with a very e.asp?id=353) Daniel Rozin: “Circles interesting career), the elegant, Mirror”, “Weave Mirror” and “Trash simple and fascinating design of the Mirror”. They are kinetic sculptures 231 screens hanging in the air turns that modify in the presence of the simple, ordinary, banal, nice, silly, spectator, thanks to video cameras, desperate, human sentences into different kinds of engines and poetry. materials, including rubbish. Complex If you continue in the intriguing apparatuses ending in clean, simple, experience of the works on exhibition, elegant and amusing interfaces. you will meet, among the others, a curious exploration in the world of robotics by great David Byrne. It is certainly well-known for his original music production, as a soloist or as the leader of the group Talking Heads, but maybe only few people know that, for many years, Byrne has been devoting himself to multidisciplinary explorations, in the field of photography and interactive

82 installations. Unfortunately, the work The latter is Dutch artist Theo Jansen that is on exhibition here, “Song for with his now well-known and Julio”, an installation that was created beautiful “Artifauna”. Unfortunately, starting from David Hanson’s robot, the incredible animal species in which is able to reproduce mouth continuous evolution, created by him movements and face expressions, by with poor materials like electricity synchronizing itself with voice tubes, plastic bands, strings and nylon recordings, when the editorial staff of sheets, needs, to be seen alive, a very Digicult had the pleasure of visiting particular habitat, that is, wet sand, the exhibition, was not working. much room and wind. For this reason, However, for those who want to know the exhibition only exhibited more about it, the artist’s website, motionless specimens, that allowed, which is rich in photos and videos, is however, to examine their complex worth a visit. structure, and a video describing their history and functioning.

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. Among the artists that are represented in the exhibition, two The aspects that were more evident great artists deserve to be mentioned: during the visit of the exhibition are the former is John Maeda, who the progressive change in the role of certainly does not need any the computer, a more and more introduction. “Máquinas y Almas” hidden or even absent element (or exhibits seven “moving pictures”, used only at the planning stage, like in which form “Nature”; they are works Theo Jansen’s work), and the of abstract expressionism, digital increasing return to organicity. The landscapes that are created by a row materials to be moulded (or re- generative software, developed by created) are more and more often the artist himself. natural elements, objects and

83 materials from daily life, what allows www.maquinasyalmas.es/ us to live or something we produce and then we throw away, feelings, www.museoreinasofia.es/ evolution, (investigated in a new way, www.kodama.hc.uec.ac.jp/ re-discovered, re-created), communication, collaborative www.paulfriedlander.com/ creation, the fusion between the work and its user under the artist’s alluring www.danielcanogar.com/ look. www.earstudio.com/ Works become entities, beings, with their own behaviours, with their own www.stat.ucla.edu/cocteau/ forms of intelligence, with the ability www.davidbyrne.com/ to change, to grow, to invent, to create, to relate, apparently also to www.hansonrobotics.com/ hear. Machines with a soul . www.maedastudio.com/

www.strandbeest.com

84 Link index

Arduino: Technology Made In Italy http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1098 http://www.arduino.cc/ http://www.tinker.it/

Why I Cannot Writ About Isea 2008 http://www.i4u.com/article19245.html%20 http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2008/07/isea-in-singap ore-the-juried.php http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/08/11/isea-2008-visualizing-the-real-time -city http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=310 http://www.isea2008singapore.org/

Panorami Paralleli Santarcengelo Of Theatres: Festival Is Still Alive Eva And The Electronic Heaven http://www.eva-conferences.com/eva_london/ http://www.bcs.org/ http://www.callas-newmedia.eu/ http://www.ica.org.uk/ http://www.i-maestro.org/ http://nlablog.wordpress.com/ http://www.rebeccagamble.co.uk/ mailto:[email protected]

85 From Sociology On The Net To That With The Net http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=9709

Geoff Cox: Social Networking Is Not Working http://project.arnolfini.org.uk/projects/2008/antisocial/ http://project.arnolfini.org.uk/projects/2008/antisocial/notes.php

Netsukuku. Close The World, Txen Eht Nepo http://netsukuku.freaknet.org/

Maurizio Bolognini’s Postdigital Conversations http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=189 http://www.bolognini.org/bolognini_PDIG.htm http://www.luxflux.net/museolab/MOSTRE/bolognini.htm http://www.luxflux.net/n6/artintheory3.htm

The Artist As Artwork In Virtual World – Part 2 http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/performances/interview.html http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/performances/index.html http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0703/msg00032.html http://memespelunk.org/blog/?page_id=39 http://adaweb.walkerart.org/ http://www.thepalace.com/ http://adaweb.walkerart.org/project/homeport/ http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/ http://www.delappe.net/

86 http://www.simgallery.net/

Julien Maire, Leonardo And The Visual Anatomy http://julienmaire.ideenshop.net/

Silvia Bottiroli / Zapruder: Conversazioni http://www.riccioneteatro.it/ttv/subsection.php?subsez=64 http://www.riccioneteatro.it/ttv/repertorio_sub.php?subsez=59

Paul Amlehn / Robert Fripp, Consciences Synthesis http://chelseaartmuseum.org/%20

Soundmuseum.fm: The Sound Gallery http://www.soundmuseum.fm/

Bruce Mcclure’s Sculptural Material Crack! Live Electronics In Palmaria Machines And Souls http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=353 http://www.maquinasyalmas.es/ http://www.museoreinasofia.es/ http://www.kodama.hc.uec.ac.jp/%20 http://www.paulfriedlander.com/%20 http://www.danielcanogar.com/ http://www.earstudio.com/ http://www.earstudio.com/ http://www.davidbyrne.com/ http://www.davidbyrne.com/

87 http://www.maedastudio.com/ http://www.strandbeest.com

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